A Tale of Two Warriors
by thevampirealucard
Summary: Batman is dealing with the aftermath of the death of his son, Damian— and Wonder Woman steps in to help him through it. All the while, a new villain rises who threatens to destroy them both as they explore their relationship. Rated for later chapters. R
1. Chapter 1

A typical night in Gotham consisted of five attempted murders, three intended rapes and muggings beyond counting. And crouching on a gargoyle on the side of Wayne Tower's roof, the Batman dwelled above it all, looking down on his domain from the heart of his city. Rain fell in torrents, a deluge that suited his dark mood quite well. Ever since Damian, his only son, was murdered, Batman drew deeper into himself to the point where his grief cast a shadow even on the façade that was Bruce Wayne. Feeling much like Kal-El, he had his head bowed over Gotham, listening attentively to the GCPD's radio feed. Batgirl had gone, taken the night off, but he knew the truth. He _almost_ chuckled to himself. Of course he knew! Was he not the World's Greatest Detective? The title sounded almost tinny within his mind as his psyche changed his grief to an outward display of intense irritation; his deadly calm, he had found early on, had scared criminals much more than a display of rage. No, Barbara's reason had been to put some room between her and the darkening Dark Knight.

-**All units converge on Sixth and Madison! We have a hostage situation with Victor Zsasz. I repeat, Zsasz is in the building, holding two twelve-year-old children hostage-**

The police radio crackled in his ear, covered by his cowl. Twelve years old. The same age Damian had been when he was murdered by one of Talia's assassins. Batman's face tightened and set itself into a grim visage as he coiled himself like a snake, drawing his long, scalloped black cloak up and out like wings, launching himself into the night, wings spread, gliding through the darkness as lightning struck, lighting up the sky.

In another time, he might have appreciated the rushing of wind and illusion of freedom afforded by his suit's gliding capability. But here and now, he felt not even a race against time to get to Zsasz. His schizophrenic obsessions would keep him occupied until Batman could get there. He knew this because he knew Zsasz. He banked and wove his way through the crowded metropolis of gothic buildings and dark skyscrapers, heading down Sixth Street, now coming on Madison. There he saw GCPD officers having just arrived. Batman estimated that no less than half the cops he saw were on the take. But then, what did that matter at the moment? Earlier in the month he had taken down Sofia Gigante when she tried to make a push to reclaim the Roman's territory in Gotham City; the Mob had been sufficiently cowed for the current time. Besides, no crime boss or super criminal was nearly insane enough to employ Zsasz. Not even the Joker, for all his antisocial personality disorder baggage, was so unstable as to hire on the psychopath possessed by his own bloodlust. No, even the Clown Prince of Crime had a reason, however demented, that he did all that he did, and that was to satisfy the dictates of his nihilistic philosophy. Zsasz was like a stick of dynamite; he killed wildly, erratically, and would definitely muddle the Joker's twisted plans.

Gordon's men were down there, and even the Commissioner himself was in attendance, looking up and trying to pick out Batman's silhouette against the cloudy sky. As lightning forked through the sky, he nodded in hesitant satisfaction. The Dark Knight had been getting darker than even he realized, and Gordon noticed. He was worried for his friend, and what he knew to be Damian's death was doing to his friend who had only recently revealed the face under the cowl to him.

Batman settled on a perch on a building above the structure where Zsasz held two twelve-year-old girls at knifepoint. The structure had a skylight, which Zsasz was standing directly under. To get a better view of the room, Batman clicked on his night vision capability. Zsasz was alone, with the girls' vital signs appearing weak. They were drugged, the Bat surmised, with chloroform. It seems they would have had to be, given that their musculature was akin to that of an Olympic gymnast. He knew then his course of action.

He leaped out into the night as lightning backlit him again, looking like a gigantic demon against the black sky. He tucked into a roll as he crashed through the skylight, cape outstretched like wings, kicking the psychopath to the ground. Not letting the knife-obsessed schizophrenic recover, Batman grabbed him by the throat and slammed Zsasz into the wall. He threw him over his head and kicked his back, sending him flying through the brick wall on the other side of the room. He untied the two strange children as they fell against him, barely conscious. Definitely chloroform. He took a cursory glance to ensure that the falling glass shards didn't cut them. He stood back up and casually kicked backwards, landing squarely in Zsasz's groin as he tried to sneak up on the Batman. Batman pivoted, took the bending Zsasz's face in his hands and smashed it, hard, directly into his knee. With Zsasz suffering now with a cracked skull among other injuries, Batman cuffed him and left him on the ground. With that done, Batman sent up a signal flare that exploded into the shape of a bat to let Jim Gordon know Zsasz was subdued.

Batman stood and concealed himself in the shadows of the room as SWAT teams came storming in. He quietly saw himself out, unseen, as the black-uniformed cops came swarming in like so many beetles. He grappled up to the building he had leaped from, then swung down to land behind Gordon.

"Jim?" he said. His voice was a deep baritone, with just an edge of rasp to it to make it unrecognizable when compared with his Bruce Wayne voice.

Jim Gordon wheeled around. "Shit, Bruce!" he exclaimed in a harsh whisper. "Could you please not do that?"

Batman stared back at him expressionlessly.

Jim sighed. "Of course not. Why do I even bother?"

"There was something strange about those two girls held hostage," said Batman. "Their physiologies and musculature are atypical of children their age. Not even Damian appeared quite as strong as those two. The chloroform is also not indicative of Zsasz's MO. Of all the children in the city and he picks the two he has to drug to keep under control? Doesn't sit right with me. This whole case is turning out to be an exercise in irregularity. I'd advise you to keep tabs on this entire series of events. I certainly am."

"Thanks for the debrief, Bruce," replied Gordon. "If you hadn't been there, this would have turned out to be a bloodbath…" He trailed off as Zsasz came out on a litter, bloodied and broken. He wordlessly looked between Zsasz and Batman's bloody black finned gloves. The vigilante noticed detachedly that there was a large amount of Zsasz's O+ blood on the gloves, and tucked them under the cape that hung from his shoulders, draping down to cover his body. With a shrug, he brought the cloak closer so that it seemed like he was naught but a shadow on the wall.

"Look, Bruce," the Commissioner began. "I'm sorry about Damian. I really am. I remember how I felt when Joker paralyzed Barbara, and how happy I felt when your doctors repaired her spine. I remember how I felt when he killed my son James. But you need to get yourself back under control!"

"I am perfectly in control, Jim," replied Batman.

"Really?" asked Gordon. "Because you know who you remind me of, now that Zsasz is in this state at your hands? Jean Paul." He paused. "Jesus Christ man, Gotham needs you to remain in…" he trailed off, realizing that his friend had disappeared.

Looking out from on the top of the LexCorp building, Batman was brooding over what had happened. With the rush of air behind him, he knew what was going to happen.

"Diana," he called out, acknowledging her presence behind him.

"Bruce," Diana replied. "We need to talk."

Batman whirled around with such speed that his cape swished around him with an audible _whoosh_. He looked at her, taking her in. At 6'3", she towered over many other women and taller than many men, including her ex-boyfriend, aviator Steve Trevor. Her wavy raven black hair hung down to the middle of her back, framing her deceptively delicate features, but held from her face by her tiara. Her blue eyes swam with fire and passion, although their current expression was businesslike. Her lips were impeccable; lips that on a member of Gotham's elite would have been equated with fellatio. Her nose, while not large, was in precise balance with the rest of her face. Her EE breasts were barely contained by her red-and-gold bustier, flowing to narrow hips and a rear that was almost incomprehensible in its size and perk, which was held by her starry short shorts. Her legs were long and slender, ending in her high-heeled red boots, while her shoulders and arms were smooth and supple, leading to her enchanted bracers and her delicate hands. All of this was completed by a seemingly seamless tan, darkening her skin to a light olive tone. She was, in a word, perfect, and Bruce had lusted after her and loved her for far longer than he would care to admit to himself—ever since he had seen her on Themiscyra, standing there, so in tune with nature. He lost control of himself then, something that he still regretted doing. He knew he would never have a chance with her, and he didn't really want to; as he had said himself, dating on the team inevitably leads to disaster. Besides, she was dating Clark, and drawing his ire was the last thing Bruce wanted to do. Not that he couldn't take Superman on—he could, he had in fact spent years developing a half dozen methods of doing so with an almost infinite number of variations on each plan depending on set circumstances—but Clark was his friend, and Bruce respected the Kryptonian, however grudgingly. Didn't stop his body from reacting to her presence, though.

Feeling this problem acutely, Bruce willed the blood from his organ, grateful that his suit's nature was such that he could hide such an erection.

Drawing himself up to his full 6'5" lean frame, he addressed her. "Princess, what brings you here to Gotham?"

She chuckled—a beautiful sound, like the peals of a bell. "You're a hard man to find, Bruce."

"Apparently not. Since I assume you're here to talk to me about Victor Zsasz and the hostages he took, it took you no more than six point eight seven minutes to successfully locate me. So let me ask you: What are two Amazon children doing in Gotham at the hands of a vicious, albeit second-rate psychopath?"

She took a deep breath. "Three days ago, two daughters of Themiscyra went missing from the first-year barracks. Somehow they'd been taken from the island and into Man's World. It wasn't an inside job; no one was missing and the Lasso revealed no lies from any of my sisters. I came here because Hermes told me that two girls matching their description were being held in Gotham."

Batman looked at her expectantly.

She closed her eyes before continuing. "They were my sisters. My actual sisters, daughters of Hippolyta like myself."

The Dark Knight nodded. "Zsasz was holding them while they were heavily drugged with chloroform. There aren't many with the research or motive to make a strain of chloroform strong enough to affect Amazons, so that should narrow down some of the people involved. Holding drugged prisoners isn't Zsasz's style; he prefers victims that beg for their lives and are totally awake, which means that he's being employed. Not only that, but the employer would have to be rich enough to afford this kind of chloroform, and he'd need to have enough resources to steal two Amazons from their enchanted island. Not even Luthor has that kind of capital or those resources; this goes deeper than I'd originally anticipated. I'll cover ground here and let you know what I find."

She couldn't stop herself. She flew over and kissed him, a friendly gesture of overwhelming gratitude to the Masked Manhunter. "Thank you so much!" she exclaimed. But she sensed something was wrong. Bruce was always so straight-laced; it was part of who he was. But this was different. It was all in the set of his shoulders, the stiffness she felt. Then she looked up to his eyes, and felt something shatter within her.

His blue eyes, usually cold and hard as winter ice, were dead. Dull.

"What's wrong?" she asked, reaching out for his face.

He grabbed her arm halfheartedly. "Nothing," he snapped. He released her arm and backed away from her, diving backwards off the top of the building and letting his cape out at just the right time to catch the Batmobile as its autopilot drove it past him. He slid into the driver's seat, belting himself in as the cockpit closed over him. Finally secure, he took hold of the bat-shaped wheel with one hand and the jet turbine's throttle with the other. He sped the Batmobile out of Gotham and through the murky autumn forest on his way back to the Batcave, leaving Wonder Woman floating there on the LexCorp building, shocked that he had fallen so far.

_Jonn_, she sent through her psychic link with the Martian. _What's with Bruce?_

_**…His son**_, came the reluctant reply. _**His son, Damian Wayne was murdered on the orders of a Talia Al Ghul three months ago. Clark and I attended the funeral. You were on Themiscyra.**_

She gasped. Now it clicked.

Ever since she had first met him, seeing him take down an alien robot single-handedly while its leg was pounding Clark into the ground, she had felt a profound animal attraction to the Dark Knight. He was so graceful, so precise and so skilled that she felt herself drawn to him, warrior to warrior. Over time, they had become a strange sort of friends— a different relationship than she originally had with Clark, where she felt like he was a brother before she had begun to date him. She had made advances on Bruce in the past, but time and again he turned her down, usually quite subtly. Of course, after a while she began dating Clark, though it was originally to make Bruce jealous. Though, it seemed to lack the intended effect. Instead, he turned to Selina Kyle, and the two had had a steady relationship going before the Joker murdered her to drive Batman to becoming the madman's greatest rival.

Her predicament was quite simple: She knew she loved him. Not a sort of animal attraction, not a product of lust. As she came to know him, she secretly fell for the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and even now that she was dating another man she loved in the form of Clark, she still had strong feelings for the dark, brooding man, although she buried them deeply. She thought that he would never return her feelings (though she couldn't have been more wrong), and so she resolved to be a friend and confidante of the shadowy warrior. But that spirit that she loved, that icy precision, that was gone. Broken.

She knew then that she would do absolutely anything to get that spirit back again.


	2. Chapter 2

_**AN: It's come to my attention that I've been spelling Themyscira wrong. I apologize.**_

_**I would also like to state that, since my first chapter had some promise, I will be continuing with updates into the foreseeable future. As ever, I do not own Batman, Wonder Woman, or any mentioned character from the JLA or Bat Family. The big bad of this series, however, I do own, as he is an OC. You've been warned.**_

_**PS If anyone does not ship Batman/Wonder Woman (for any reason. Come on, they're perfect for each other!) I should warn you right off the bat (no pun intended) that where this story will be going is going to force you to want to rip your hair out. AGAIN, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. R&R because my pride demands it. Back to the story already in progress…**_

Batman gripped the steering wheel tightly as he navigated the twisting leaf-covered back road through the forest that led to his sanctum. The Batmobile purred and responded to his deft handling of her as he headed home, probably for the night. Zsasz notwithstanding, Batman had been at this long enough that he had his hand on the pulse of his city. It was a slow night, and it promised no more action. Which was goddamn unfortunate, because action was just the thing he desperately needed after the meeting with Diana.

He cursed himself as he unwillingly remembered the rush of emotions that came when he saw her clear blue eyes, sparkling and beautiful as the Mediterranean, fill to the brim with concern. He could tune it out when Jim expressed his condolences, when Alfred looked on him with pity in his eyes enough for the entirety of Her Majesty's Secret Service. But her? That was where he drew the line.

That was why he had refused her advances, even though at times he was desperately tempted. Whenever the phrase of acceptance began to make its way out of his throat, it stopped dead at the images his traumatized mind conjured: Her turning her back on him in disgust, her lying in a pool of her own blood as the Joker sodomized her corpse. But that had not been the worst image. The worst image was seeing her vibrant eyes dim and darken with sadness. An emotion that he had caused to spring from within her. And to him, that idea was abhorrent.

He drove through the holographic rock wall that barred his way, and through the tunnel onto the panel that held the Batmobile in between patrols. As the cockpit slid open, he swung out of the car and landed on his feet with a crunch, the tinkling of broken glass accompanying the sound of his titanium microweave-tipped boots hitting the rock platform of the gargantuan cave. He walked along the bridges linking the platforms on the various levels of the cave's titanic stalagmites that had more in common with columns. Finally on the main platform, he sank onto his chair before the monumental Batcomputer in emotional, not physical, exhaustion. He pulled off his cowled mask, setting it on the dashboard of the machine, letting his long, thick blue-black hair out. It hadn't always been like that, but he hadn't cut his hair since Damian died, and his hair grew out to the point where the lowest tiers of hair hung down to his shoulders, not unlike Dick's when his adopted son was in Gotham after Bane and Jean Paul.

Diana flew into the passage that was intended to let the Batwing take to the skies, though her misgivings weighed like an anvil. But she owed it to her friend. After all, he'd been her shoulder to cry on in previous occasions. She exited the flight tunnel and into the Batcave itself, taking the time to admire the massive superstructure that had survived the fury of an earthquake that had destroyed the rest of Gotham as well as the original Wayne Manor, the rebuilt version of which sat above her head at the present moment. As she laid her eyes upon the Batman slouching on his throne, unmasked, looking utterly defeated, she felt a pang in her ribcage that only strengthened her resolve to restore the broken general.

She glided down to the computer, and whispered quietly, one word:

_"Bruce."_

Bruce's eyes shot open. His first thought was one of hope. He had to be hallucinating, he thought, to see his beloved Diana before him in his hour of exhaustion. But then his subconscious personality that allowed him to escape the effects of mind control so _kindly_ informed him, in a voice identical to that of Thomas Wayne, that he was not, in fact, dreaming or hallucinating. She was there, radiant even in the dark cave, breasts rising and falling, covered in rain as the drops fell down her bust and from her hair, looking every inch like the Greek demigoddess she was. His heart sank further into his chest as he beheld that which, because of his weakness and inability to hold his own demons at bay, could never be his.

"Bruce?" she asked, beholding the spark of hope in his eyes, but then watching it smolder and die with a growing sense of despair as he realized that he was, in fact, fully awake.

"Diana," he breathed, almost ruefully.

"I'm so sorry," she said, heart beginning to tear within her chest. A detached part of herself that sounded suspiciously like her mother, Hippolyta, chastised her. She was emotional, certainly, the voice said, but this was ridiculous! Wha… The voice cut out as Diana silenced it firmly before it went any further. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

"Damian was a good soldier," said Bruce, standing up to walk to the edge of the platform and look off of the precipice into the abyss of the cave's depths. "But the war goes on," he added in a much quieter tone, his shoulders set with the intent to force himself to display decorum before the woman he secretly loved.

"But you don't truly believe that," Diana said, floating up close behind Bruce.

He shuddered, his shoulders slumping beneath the cape that covered his body. "No," he replied at last. "Jason, Barbara, even Dick, they're all soldiers. I would mourn their loss, but I'd move on. This," he took a shuddering breath. "This is different. When my parents were killed, I had no uncles, no cousins, no distant relatives. I lost my family that night, when I was eight years old, and that… that killed the man I might have become. He died, stillborn, on that sidewalk, knees stained with his parents' blood while it flowed into the sewers. But Damian… Damian was my son." He stopped. Diana was shocked to see the great Batman so vulnerable, so weakened by this tragedy when he had endured other tragedies whose weight alone would level Superman.

Finally, he continued. "Seeing my twelve year old son lie on that slab, cold and dead… I lost my family all over again. The son who I had finally begun to bond with." He paused. "There were so many things I never said, things I never got to say, things we could have _done_. And now his mother—his own _bloody_ mother—who ordered his assassination has vanished from the face of the Earth. What am I doing? What am I going to do?"

"You go on fighting, like you always do," she said solemnly. "You continue on your crusade, relentlessly and to the exclusion of all else, like you've always done."

He shook his head slowly. "Why?" he asked to her astonishment. "What is the value of going on fighting when around every corner there is nothing more than more death and more suffering? Where does it end?" he asked, turning to her. The sadness in his eyes made her blood boil. Before she could stop herself, she slapped him across the face.

Hard.

"You pathetic bag of meat!" she yelled. "I could break you myself! Where is the warrior, so cold and precise! Where is the hell-driven man who made a crusade his life! Where is the blade for justice, forged in the fires of Hades!" Her voice cracked, and she was unable to halt the flow of salty tears down her face. "Where is the man I fell in love with?" she sobbed.

His expression, in turn, warped and shifted to the point where it was unreadable. Then he did the absolute _last_ thing she expected him to do.

He grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. Hard.

At first, she was astonished. But she soon melted into his embrace, kissing him back passionately. As she opened her mouth and her tongue explored his mouth, while his rough one explored hers, she marveled at the intensity, the raw need, the unrequited hunger and vibrant lust that his kiss imparted. She reached up and tangled her hand in his silky locks, bangs shadowing his eyes as his own hands reached down, almost cupping her ass…

"NO!" he roared, throwing himself backwards, almost at the edge of the platform. She paused, breathless, noting how the fury of the kiss drove them back into the center of the platform.

"That was…" she finally managed to utter, "amazing."

Bruce, however, was taken aback in abject horror at his own lack of control. "We really shouldn't have done that. _I _really shouldn't have done that. I am so sorry, Princess. I think you should go. If you feel the need to tell Clark, I understand."

He couldn't bear to look into her eyes as the passion and lust in them changed to confusion and hurt. His tone spoke of finality, and there was nothing she could do to change his mind.

"Fine," she said simply, tears falling anew from her eyes as she flew out of the cave at a high speed.

When she was gone, he plopped back down into his chair, almost missing it. All he could think about as he ran his gloved hand through his long blue-black hair was how silky her tongue was, how soft her lips felt, and how good she tasted, sweet but with a hint of…

"SHUT UP!" he shouted, getting up and punching a nearby rock wall that had a reinforced steel vault behind it. His fist went straight through, punching a hole through the other side. His aggression and frustration would not be quenched, however, by brutalizing a single wall. Stripping off his cape, gloves, belt and shirt, he tossed them to the side as he walked quickly down the bridge to the holotraining unit he had installed.

"Computer, initiate stage Epsilon, level 26!" he exclaimed to the voice activated computer unit governing the construction of the hard light holographic combatants. Twenty-six _onmitsu_-type members of the League of Assassins wielding _naginata _and _katanas_ spawned, surrounding the man, as he entered his freeflow battle mode.

Ten minutes later, he was grateful that he had not gone back out into Gotham. Given the struck contact points of the holograms and the amount of force registered with each such blow, had he chosen to blow off steam on patrol, the morgue of Gotham General would have had twenty-six new occupants. "SON OF A BITCH!" he shouted. He didn't see Alfred at the top of the stairs at the entrance to the cave, standing with his eyes downcast sadly.

Already thirty miles away and a mile above sea level, heading to Metropolis, Diana, Princess of the Amazons wiped tears from her eyes before asking herself one vitally important question:

_What the fuck just happened?_


	3. Chapter 3

_**AN: Just a little thing to help with immersion—the Batmobile is the Keaton model, the Batsuit is from The Killing Joke, only with blacks in place of the blues and greys, and Alfred is the one from TAS. Also, this story's background involves pre-Flashpoint, New 52 and some DCAU canon. As always, I do not own Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Alfred, Dream of the Endless, Death of the Endless or Lucifer. Credits to Serena-Kenobi here: art/Batman-and-Wonder-Woman-the-Kiss-304909676 for the cover image.**_

Bruce was sitting down at the table in the kitchen, in his tights and boots, sipping at a cup of tea and grimacing when he found its temperature to be too high, when Alfred approached him. The butler had been with the Wayne family and Bruce in particular to be intimidated by the man.

"Sir," he began. "If I'm not intruding, why precisely did you feel the need to brutalize the cave?"

Bruce was silent.

"It was the Amazon princess, was it not?" Alfred asked.

Bruce nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Master Bruce, I have been here as your guardian since you were eight, when your parents died," he began again. "I have seen you grow and mature into the man you are now. I would like to believe that you can talk to me, if to no one else." He sat.

It was ten silent minutes before Bruce said anything, and during that time, he simply stared into his tea mug, as if it held the answers to the Universe. "I don't know what to do, Alfred," he said. "I… I lost control, and now I may have just pushed her away."

"We all lose friends, Master Bruce."

Bruce gave Alfred a look as close to baleful as he could bear to get with his surrogate father. "You and I both know better than that, Alfred. Diana is more than a friend." He paused. "I… I love her, Alfred. More than I've loved anyone since Andrea."

The butler grew silent, remembering the tragedy that was his employer's relationship with Ms. Andrea Beaumont.

Bruce continued. "Every time I see her, it's like my heart stops. And whenever I tried to initiate a relationship, I thought of everything that could happen, and I just couldn't do it. And tonight she came down into the Batcave after we talked on top of the LexCorp building and I… went too far. God, she's dating Clark! I wasn't thinking! But I really need to fix this. I can't lose her."

Alfred considered carefully what he was going to say before he spoke. "Master Bruce," he said. "You are forty-six years old. You are well past the time when I could tell you to do anything. But if I may offer my advice…" he took a deep breath. "I do not believe, sir, that the late Mrs. Wayne, may she rest in peace, did not restore this manor so that ghosts could occupy its rooms."

With that, he turned and left Bruce in the kitchen, alone with his thoughts.

Meanwhile, 260 miles away in a café in Metropolis, high above the city, clad in a red silk dress that hung to her knees, Diana stared out into the seemingly endless night, pondering. The way he kissed her, with such hunger, such passion, was almost alien to her. Not even Steve had ever kissed her with that much fire, and Clark's kisses were so chaste that they were almost icy.

"Diana?" asked Clark. She realized that he had been talking about one thing or the other for the better part of an hour.

"Yes, Clark?" she asked, cursing herself for becoming distracted, focusing back on the matter at hand, and not on Bruce, with his firm grip, his demanding gaze, his lips crushing against hers like she was air and he was a drowning man… STOP IT! she chastised herself.

"Diana," he said. "What's wrong? You seem distracted." He looked at her, his soft blue eyes peering at her with concern.

"Nothing," she said, waving it off. "Just a friend."

Clark knew exactly who she was talking about, and he felt a terrible pang of jealousy as he pictured Bruce's smug face. "I think I know how to cheer you up." He motioned to the glass of champagne that had just been set down before her. They were, of course, both in their costumes.

Diana did as bidden, drinking down the champagne until something metallic landed against her full lips. She picked it up between her delicate fingers, seeing a silver ring with a gleaming diamond set into the center of it.

"Diana," he intoned, "Princess of Themiscyra. Will you marry me?"

Diana was rendered speechless. In the depths of her mind, she ran through what might happen. Clark and she, rulers of the Amazons. Her in her chambers, holding a daughter with ice blue….

Wait, Clark's eyes were soft blue, and Clark didn't have long hair…

All of a sudden, she looked into Clark's eyes, so full of puppy love, like a little brother. And in that instant, she realized that that was all he'd ever be.

"I'm so sorry, Clark. I can't," she whispered so that only he could hear. Her vision blurring with tears for the third time that night. She flew up and out of her seat, leaving Clark sitting there, too stunned to speak or react.

_Damn you, Bruce,_ she thought. _Damn you to Tartarus!_

She flew off into the night, heading to her apartment.

Bruce Wayne slept the way he'd slept for nearly forty years— fitfully. But in the midst of his demented nightmares, he heard a deep voice with an aristocratic British accent calling him. He paid heed when his dreamscape began to melt, before he could see his father fall dead for the thousandth time that night.

_No, No, NO!_ shouted the voice. It sighed in exasperation. _I swear, Bruce, you're harder to get ahold of than the Kryptonian!_

The dreamscape reformed itself until Bruce, in his uniform but unmasked, sat on bright green grass in a vibrant grove, so alive and flourishing that Bruce almost thought he was in Themiscyra.

_Do you like it?_ asked the voice. _The Garden of Eden. An extradimensional paradise dreamed up by my father. Or at least, it was._

Bruce's gaze focused on the center of the Garden. Leaning against a large tree, he sat there, sipping a golden glass of sparkling cider, clad in a black tuxedo with large bird's wings the color of sunlight. The man was tall, as tall as Bruce. His features were chiseled, with bright blue eyes. His right pupil was dilated so that it looked like a void ringed with blue fire, and he had a head of well-combed hair the color of spun gold. And he was looking right at Bruce.

_We meet at last, Dark Knight, _said the man. _I'm a great fan of yours. Been watching you with hawk's eyes since you were eight._ The man nodded his head, almost bowing. _My name, dear Knight, is Lucifer Morningstar. _He took a swig out of the cocktail glass, then grimaced, turning the rest of the glass upside down. _I swear, the taste of nonalcoholic summerwine is some of the worst shit I've tasted in three thousand years. Now the Greeks,_ he said, nodding thoughtfully. _They knew their wines. That stuff could knock you on your ass in the space of a shot glass._

Bruce finally found that he could speak. "Why are you here?"

The man cocked his head, amused. _I don't think anyone's had the gall to ask me that question in five thousand years. Why are you here? Why is anyone here? What's the meaning of life?! _Lucifer shook his head, chuckling. _But seriously, I'm here because Morpheus owes me a favor. In fact, he's over in your little girlfriend's dreamscape, talking to her right now. He won't be happy; but then again, when is he ever? I swear, he's got almost as much angst in him as you! But on to the point,_ he said, noticing how Bruce was rearing to explode, fury in his eyes. _The point is that I've been watching your little love story for some time now, to the point where I have a subscription now to "Popcorners Weekly." Really, it's a thing. But after the last little scene, I had to intervene. You guys need to get your heads out of your proverbial asses and realize you guys love each other. Destiny's little "Book of Fanfiction" states that you guys don't get together. _

"But, she's with Clark!" he protested.

_ Bruce, her relationship with Clark was doomed from the get-go. Literally. It's on page 20,016 of Destiny's Book of Fate. When they eventually break up, Little Schoolboy Blue is gonna go ballistic and join with the rising tide. You are the only being in this universe capable of bringing him down. You are one of three people who know how to work the Phantom Zone projector, and the only one who can actually outmatch him in single combat. Besides, you've already set the wheels of Fate in motion. The All-American Boy Scout's simmering as we speak._

Bruce cast his eyes down in hatred of himself.

_ Oh, don't blame yourself, _Lucifer scoffed. _Simpering really is beneath you. It was inevitable that this was going to happen. Better, I say, that it happens now and you're able to deal with it. It took some convincing, but I was able to convince Morpheus's big sister Death to remove them from Oblivion._

"Who?" asked Bruce.

_ The only two people who can help you. Mr. Kent Allard and Ms. Margot Lane. They'll find you. Accept their help._

Lucifer turned to go. _Oh, and one more thing._ He stopped, and the dreamscape started to fade slowly into darkness._ I've been alone for longer than I care to admit. You don't have to bear such a heavy load solitarily. Don't push Diana away._ He disappeared into the warm breeze as the dreamscape breathed its last.

In Metropolis's Chinatown District, Diana dreamed of Bruce. That is, until her dreams were abruptly interrupted; the dreamscape just froze. Out of the corner of her eye strode a deathly pale man, tall and thin, cloaked in dreams, with deep black hair and eyes the color of night within which distant stars glittered.

**Greetings, Diana of Themiscyra, **said the man. **I am Dream of the Endless. You may call me Morpheus or Apollo. Your choice. I come bearing a message from the Morningstar, Lucifer. The man you love, Bruce Wayne, is an object of his fascination. I myself stay away from his dreams. No matter how many times he watches his parents die, the anguish is always just as crushing. Then again, Lucifer's favorite movie has been **_**The Seventh Seal**_** for forty years now, so maybe he can withstand all of it. I can't.**

Dream took a deep breath.** Bruce is utterly alone, Diana. The pressures of forty years of soul-sundering anguish has hardened his heart. He loves you, Diana, but he is reluctant to burden you with his pain.**

Morpheus looked up at the moon in her dream.** He's the way I was,** he chuckled.** Before I was entrusted with the keys to Hell, before I died and was brought back. Your love is strong, yes, but even the strongest man will be crushed under the weight of eternal solitude. He has reached his breaking point. Go to him, and make him see that he no longer has to be alone.**

With that, the King of All Night's Dreaming faded into the night of her own dream, his task done.

The next morning, Bruce woke in a daze. He walked, not having eaten, down the stairs to his cave, sitting in his chair. He remembered everything that Lucifer said, and frankly, the enormity of what he had just experienced was taxing his spent mind.

"Bruce?" Diana called out. Like Bruce, she remembered what Morpheus said to her. Her resolve was back, her mind was made up.

"Diana?" he said back into the cave. His heart stopped as she alighted upon the platform, looking radiant as ever.

She didn't speak. Didn't utter a word. She walked up to him and crashed her lips to his, tangling her fingers in his hair. He wrapped his hands around her waist and instinctively pulled her closer to him. Without breaking the kiss, she pulled down his tights and let his member flop out into the cool air of the cave, blood flowing into it as she kept going with the kiss, forcing her tongue into his mouth.

"Diana," Bruce breathed after Wonder Woman broke the kiss.

"Shh… Bruce, you don't have to be alone. I'm here for you," she said.

"But…" he gasped, trying—and failing—to get out a coherent thought as Diana engulfed his phallus with her mouth. "What about Clark?"

"This isn't about Clark, Bruce," she said, lifting her head from his fourteen-inch fully erect cock and wrenching the crotch of her short shorts to the side. "This is about you…" —she positioned her wet, shaved labia against his three-inch wide head— "and ME!"

She dropped onto Bruce's large member, burying it up to the hilt in her canal that was so tight that it was almost too tight for Superman's seven and a half inch long and one-inch wide dick. She cried out in unbelievable pleasure, that movement alone putting her into a state of orgasmic release, Bruce's eyes rolling back into his head at the sensation. Her inner muscles massaged his cock as she began to slowly roll her hips, pulling Bruce tightly against her, her massive breasts crushing up against his scarred chest, putting her mouth next to his ear.

"You're not alone anymore," she panted. "I'm here for you. I'll always be here with you, by your side until the end of your life. Nothing will ever change that. Give me your pain. Let me help you carry your suffering and agony. No force in this universe will ever take me away from you. Don't push me away!" The last pledge turned into a wail as she went into another orgasm, riding the waves of pleasure.

Bruce, for his part, could barely believe his ears. The woman of his dreams was in his lap, moaning for him, telling him she loved him and that she would never leave him. Her vaginal canal was tighter than tight, gripping his shaft more firmly than Selina, Talia, Vicky or even Julie. He in turn whispered to her.

" I love you, Diana. Since I saw you on Themiscyra I loved you more than you can know!" He reared his hips and drove into her, meeting her thrusts. Thankfully he had the presence of mind to lock down the cave. Alfred interrupting certainly wouldn't do when his love was taking him to Elysium and back.

Diana loved how he was starting to participate, rolling his own hips in time with hers. She felt his head go through her cervix and into her womb, but that only flooded her opening and Bruce's dick with more natural lubrication. Time bled away, the cave ceased to exist, and in the void there was only her and him, copulating with a hunger that would not be denied, with a lust that demanded to be satiated.

After innumerable orgasms (and what the Batcomputer said was two hours), she felt herself building up to a large release, like every orgasm after the first had been building up to this, her ultimate expression of sexual pleasure. She was amazed at his stamina and staying power; Clark usually lasted no more than twenty minutes before he finished and left her high and dry—probably because he was used to having sex with Lois, with whom the power of his thrusts alone would take her to cloud nine within the space of two minutes. But Bruce was different. He was considerate in bed as well as out. She thought this as her orgasm began to reach the edge.

"Diana," Bruce gasped out in a husky tone. "I'm getting ready to cum!"

She was not disappointed, but she had expected him to hold out just a bit longer. "Just let it go, Bruce. Let it all out within me," she said, trying her hardest to maintain a soothing tone.

As it turned out, she needn't have worried. As soon as she said that, Bruce groaned and sped up the speed of his thrusting, bringing her to three more successive orgasms before his dick began to quiver in her sheath. As he began to cum with a roar, she blasted over the edge of a massive orgasm that caused her juices to squirt out hard.

"BRUCE!" she screamed as they came together, both of them tensing as she felt his seed splash deep into her womb with immense force. Her orgasm devolved her into a twitching mess for a full ten minutes, and through that time, he continued to empty himself within her.

Finally, when they both came down from their respective orgasms, they collapsed into each other, Bruce's erection going soft within her. They united in a kiss, Diana beyond satisfied and Bruce feeling like he was in his own personal paradise.

Diana pulled away first, standing up and away from him, then taking his cock into her mouth and sucking it clean of her cum and his, and was rewarded for her efforts with another copious load of semen into her throat. She held it in her mouth for a moment, savoring his particular taste, before she swallowed it all down in three gulps. Bruce believed himself to be drained right then, but three words from Diana, whispered directly into his ear, breathed new life into his member:

"Wanna go again?"

The next morning, Diana woke up smiling in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor. Seeing Bruce still asleep, she studied his body with the eyes of one who had experienced nearly _all_ of what it could do. He was tall, yes, but he was also very lean. Not an ounce of fat existed on his body, which was sculpted with long muscle. He wasn't built like Clark (as if anyone was), but his body seemed almost better for it. Maybe because she knew that he had worked hard to achieve it, and that every ounce of tensile strength was the result of painstaking hours in a gym or on a road or in the mountains with a spot-on perfectionist mindset. His body afforded him much more grace than Superman, for in battle he twisted and wove through crowds of combatants with the elusiveness of an eel, every move calculated to the last muscle twitch. She traced a finger down his hairless chest, feeling his pectorals and abs that were so tough as to be able to withstand small arms fire. She continued down, blushing slightly as she laid eyes upon his hairless crotch and his limp eight-inch pole that looked like it was still an inch and a half wide. She grinned as she remembered how, after the two hour session in the Batcave, they had gone three more times, each time about a half hour longer than the last, as well as how her smooth, supple legs clutched him to her by the waist. As she thought of that she noticed how her pussy felt terribly sore, but it was a good kind of sore. One that she had never felt with Clark. It had just seemed that the heated need to prove their feelings to one another had given them the stamina to go for most of the day and half the night until, both exhausted, they fell into a post-coital sleep.

She continued her journey down his sculpted legs with his powerful calves, the legs of one who could run a full marathon in an hour and a half and not be so much as breathing hard. Though you wouldn't know it from the breathless way he kissed her, hungrily to the point of suggesting starvation. She chuckled to think that Bruce, possessing no discernable superpowers, was more well-endowed and better in bed than Clark, who himself possessed superstrength and superspeed. Just another case of finesse and passion trumping brute force, she concluded.

She looked up and peered into Bruce's eyes, which were now open and awake, watching her on her stomach. She shivered at the pure want she saw there, and she became acutely aware of how she could remember how it felt when the great Batman let himself go deep within her. With a gleam in his eye, he grabbed her and rolled her over onto her back as she giggled and he growled.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered hungrily into her ear, fingers going down and exploring her nether regions as he stroked her hair lovingly with his other hand. His arms were long and covered with corded muscle and white scars from countless battles, while his long fingers caressed her softly, tantalizingly, with a sort of deft dexterity that came from long hours of practicing acrobatics and martial arts.

She moaned in pleasure, but she regained control of herself and regretfully giggled out, "Down, boy."

He groaned, but obeyed.

"Tell me what's troubling you," she said, her role there remembered.

He let out a long sigh. "Do you really want to carry my burden?"

"I want to help."

When he hesitated, she took advantage and caressed his angular jaw softly with her own fingers. "Hey," she said. "You can tell me."

He grimaced before acquiescing. "When my parents were murdered, Alfred became my legal guardian— this you know. He trained me at my behest from age eight to fourteen in the styles that he had learned as a member of Her Majesty's Secret Service. From fourteen through twenty-one I traveled the world to learn every martial arts discipline, garnering a prolific education along the way. But what you don't know is that, after I returned when I was twenty-one, I met someone." He took a deep breath. "Her name was Andrea Beaumont. I met her one day while I was visiting my parents' grave. She was talking to the grave of her mother. That night was the first night I spent as a vigilante. Not Batman yet, but I was just starting to grasp the idea. She came around the next morning. First girl who ever did that," he chuckled. "We were in a relationship after that and I… I fell in love for the first time. I really didn't know what to do with what I was feeling." He fell silent as he remembered pleading with his parents' grave on that rainy night, when she came to him and comforted him, made him believe that it was okay for him to be happy. With her. "I made up my mind and proposed to her the next day. She accepted." He could still feel her shivering body against his as legions of bats poured out of the fissure that led to the cave. "I saw her home that night, and we were both overjoyed. But the next day she fled the country and returned the ring to me. I was devastated, and I accepted then that it wasn't my lot to be happy. That night I donned my first Batsuit. The bank robbers I found that night… they never walked again." He let out a long breath with an audible hiss.

"It's okay," Diana said, rubbing up and down Bruce's arm.

"There's more," he said. "Years later I was investigating a string of seemingly unrelated mob killings. I was being blamed for them because the culprit was a spectral figure with a tattered cloak and deep voice." He paused. "That was when Andrea came back into my life."

Diana watched closely, silently encouraging him to spill his guts.

"I thought it was her father committing the killings. We… we got back together after a night where I was chasing the killer and subsequently got pinned down by the police. It turned out that she was the killer, and that she was seeking revenge for her father, who was sold out by his former assistant, who, coincidentally, was low on cash in his campaign for a seat on the city council. They sent a hitman after him—after he had paid back what he owed— and killed him. The assassin was the brother of the man who would become the Joker, and he died in a shootout with the police a year before I accidentally created the criminal. So she was going after the Joker himself as a substitute. I caught her there. She… she saved my life and disappeared. I can only assume that she's dead. And that was why I became reluctant to commit to any long-term relationships. Thus Playboy Bruce was born, and I was resigned that solitude would be my lot."

Diana kissed him. She kissed him to show him she understood. To show him, once again, that he needn't be alone as long as she was around. Then she pressed a finger to his lips, pressed into a hard line.

"You needn't tell me any more. We can do this in stages," she suggested.

Bruce was surprised. "I've got almost as many stories like that as I have scars. You're willing to date a rich kid with this many issues?"

She smirked. "You mean a warrior who was forged in the fires of tragedy and yet goes on fighting? Always." And with that she kissed him with such fervor that it left them both breathless. She swung her legs from the bed, stood up and sashayed halfway to the door to the master bath. She threw him a look over her shoulder to see him gazing at her ass as it moved. "I'm going to take a shower," she said. "Wanna join me?"

They made slow, passionate love in that shower before she left. Neither of them got particularly clean.

_**AN: So, okay. Tell me, how was my first attempt at smut? And sorry about the cameos from **__**Sandman**__**, I just love Neil Gaiman's work so much. And they do technically exist in the same universe. I plan on making some infrequent cameos featuring them. R&R plz. **_


	4. Chapter 4

_**AN: Whew! So, a lot happened with that last chapter. Almost more than I felt comfortable with putting in in the space of a single update. But, felt like I really needed to get the ball rolling. Imaginary bag of medical blood to anyone who noticed the Kent Allard name-drop. So, I suppose all that's left to say is hope you're enjoying the story, and let the plot… BEGIN! Of course, I do not own Sandman or the JLA or The Shadow or any other affiliated characters. I DO NOT OWN DC. Period. So there. R&R. I'm begging you.**_

It's a well-known office legend that Bruce Wayne never smiled in the workplace. So naturally, his secretary was more than a little alarmed that her employer walked in that morning with a small grin—more like a smirk—plastered to his handsome face. He hadn't been seen since his son died three months prior, so it came as a shock when he walked in with his blue-black hair worn long. Other than those two admittedly titanic surprises, it seemed like he was as he'd always been, clad in his usual attire of a black suit and red tie. It had been raining earlier, so he wore a long black trench coat, which was soaked, and his locks shined with water droplets.

"Good morning, Liz," he said almost cheerfully.

She started when he said that, so she responded with a shaky, "G… Good m… morning Mr. W… Wayne!"

Bruce knew that his expression terrorized his poor secretary, Liz Bathory, but he couldn't have cared less—which was an exceedingly strange sentiment to hold even for an instant, for the minutest things. He opened the oak door to his office and shut it, pressing himself against it and blowing bangs out of his face with a huff. He almost wanted to get a haircut, but Diana liked his long hair, so he knew he didn't dare think of it. He composed himself briefly, setting his rectangular black leather briefcase next to his large dark cherry desk and taking off his long black trench coat to put it onto his coat hanger in the far left corner of the room. He settled into his large black leather rotating chair, putting his suit jacket onto the back of it, pulling off his black leather gloves finger by finger, and turned it around, facing the back half of his semicircular office—which was a giant window.

Wayne Tower was the tallest building in the city, and Bruce's office was on the top floor of said tallest building, so his window gave him a panoramic view of his city. He entered into a meditative state as he waited for Liz to burst in at any moment with three month's work of proposals to review that required his executive signature. Most of such paperwork that came flooding in every day could have been dealt with by the Board or any other lower level administrators, but there was a small cadre of those decisions that could only be made by him, as the sole head of the private business empire that was Wayne Enterprises.

Granted, that cadre had been growing increasingly as Bruce had set about the monumental task of merging the late Ra's Al Ghûl's corporate assets into the fold, which, seeing as those businesses left to him by Ra's were collectively several times larger than the Wayne family holdings, was an administrative and financial nightmare. But Bruce had been determined to do it when Damian was alive, and he certainly wasn't going to give up now.

As expected, the harrowed twenty-two year old crashed in no more than a half hour later. As he turned in his seat, he observed that the stack of paperwork she was carrying was almost comically high. Elizabeth was not particularly unattractive, with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, the large horn-rimmed glasses she wore when she forgot her contacts—twenty seven days out of every month, he'd counted—and her petite form. She was the shy, nerdy girl in high school who was pretty, but modest. This, however, was a file kept in Bruce's head for only one reason—in case she ever turned on him or the company. He almost pitied her, as in the rush to gather the paperwork to give to her boss with the hope of his approval she had become significantly—to him, at least—disheveled.

"Mr. Wayne, here are the merger reports from two months ago…"—she took one third of the massive stack and plopped it on the far left side of his desk—"…last month…"—she took another third of the stack and plopped it down next to the first, in the center of the desk—"…and this month, sir. The proposals are on hold. Would you like your coffee made as usual?"

"Black," he said, nodding. "Thank you, Ms. Bathory. You may go," he said, flashing her a smile. She visibly shivered, obviously shaken, and left through the door, closing it behind her.

Bruce settled into the task quickly. Executive level management had its perks in that it required very little in the way of actual work, but Bruce, being the perfectionist he was, scrutinized every sheet of paper from every department reporting on the state of the massive merger he had set in motion six months earlier. Three months ago, the conglomerate's submitted quarterly report was absolutely spotless. As he went through report after report, he believed that this quarter would be better than the last. And with the merger, no one would care about the millions slipping through the cracks in R&D. The accountants would be too bleary-eyed checking expenses against income to actually give a shit. He went over the information in agonizing detail, a notebook open next to him within which he noted unnecessary expenditures that showed up in Accounting's compilation of financial ledgers and recorded transactions for the merging. Note everything, the detective in him said, so that you won't get any nasty surprises when the quarterly is submitted. Still, despite this, given his keen eye and genius intellect, he flew through paperwork as the hours ticked by, his notebook filling with notes on both the expenditures and ways to cut down on them. Finally, by noon, he had finished with the stack of paperwork that would have taken a normal man several days to get through in half as much detail. He buried his head in his hands, instantly regretting it and nursing his sore wrist. Sex with Diana was tiring enough (the way they did it), so he felt no shame for his writing woes.

"_Mr. Wayne, a Ms. Diana Prince to see you," _said Liz over the intercom.

Bruce's face broke into a full smile, his exhaustion forgotten. "Send her in, Ms. Bathory," he said. "And please come and pick up the merger reports from my desk. I'm done with them."

Elizabeth had been to the break room at ten, so the rest of the building knew about the office legend that was broken that day. Like her, they took it as a bad sign. Mr. Wayne was nice enough, sure, but slip up and there'd be Hell to pay. He was a real hardass that way, and if he didn't like what you did, he wouldn't stop hounding you until you set it right, and after that you'd be under what the people in the office had termed "the Frostbite Glare"—or "FrostGlare" for short—for the next week, two if you really fucked up or got lucky. It was an eagle-eyed death stare that made grown men shiver in their seats just from witnessing it turned on someone. No one in the office knew what it was like to bear the brunt of it, because no one who was on the wrong end of it lasted the week or two, because do so much as chew your gum wrong while under that glare, and you could say "sayonara" to the company. So the guys and girls of Wayne Tower, people who'd fought and worked hard to get where they were, were scared half to death for their jobs because their employer had come in in a good mood, and they were paralyzed with fear over what should happen to the person that caused him to lose his sunny disposition for the day.

So it was just one more thing when _she _came in. She was a tall woman, taller than most of the men in the office except for the Boss, and hers was the kind of beauty that you didn't even find in the most lascivious of marble statues. She had a commanding, intimidating stride, and Elizabeth just wanted to go crawl under a rock when the woman's cerulean blue eyes fell on her.

"Tell Bruce I'm here to see him," she said in a beautiful, musical voice, which sounded exceedingly threatening, as if the next words to be said with that voice would be 'or I'll tear your fucking head off'. Elizabeth struggled to find words, which this woman seemed to find amusing, as her full lips twitched like she was just barely containing a laugh at Liz's predicament.

"What's my name?" she supplied.

Liz nodded.

"Tell him it's Diana Prince," Diana said, mirth in her eyes.

So Liz punched the intercom, and, in a desperate attempt not to stutter, said in a shaky voice, "Mr. Wayne, a Ms. Diana Prince to see you." She relaxed as the reply came, up until her boss told her to collect the paperwork he had just finished. Knowing him, it'd really be all of it that he had gone through, plus that black notebook he always had her carry out along with the finished stack. Shaking like a leaf, she opened the door to Mr. Wayne's office, letting the terrifying Ms. Prince in before her, as she slipped in behind and moved to collect the three stacks of reports. When the black notebook was given to her with the instructions to take it down to Accounting before her lunch break, she put it on the top of the stack, and picked up the entire pile, walking it down to the directed department. She felt like a bug under a lamp as Ms. Prince stared at her condescendingly while Mr. Wayne's glance felt like ice down her back. Grateful to be out of the executive office, she let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding as the heavy door closed behind her.

Bruce had to stifle a gasp as he saw Diana in her day clothes before him. Her hair was done up in a classy bun held with chopsticks, her eyes bright beneath her rectangular wire rimmed glasses, clad in a white, form-fitting white jumpsuit, bottomed off with black–soled heels that, as a part of her uniform, were white. Instead of the exotic Amazon beauty, Diana's alter ego had a sexy librarian theme going for her, and he had to stifle a laugh at his secretary's reaction to her businesslike stare.

As soon as the door swung closed, Diana asked, "Is the door soundproofed?"

After Bruce nodded his head in affirmation, she walked around his desk, hips swaying sexily, and sat herself down on the desk right in front of him, legs crossed.

"Terrorizing the secretary is my job," he said in a dead serious tone, while his eyes betrayed his mirth.

"Her boyfriend of two and a half months works for me. Can't have her going home to him, telling him that the dreaded Diana Prince was _nice _to her!" she said, defending herself with a smirk on her face. Gods, she loved seeing him so happy. Of course, she knew that it was mostly a façade, but she felt her nether regions tingle when he looked at her as if the very act of seeing her made his day worth living through. So she didn't even try to stop herself as she grabbed his tie with her white gloves and pulled his face to her.

"Let's go," she said sexily.

"Diana," he chuckled, "I have a lot of shit to do."

She chuckled. Damn, did everything she did have to be so fucking seductive? "You are suuuuuuch a workaholic," she said, drawing the word out into a moan. "You need a break. From one hardass boss to another."

Bruce laughed. The sound of it, which to most made Vincent Price's laughter seem like an episode of the Care Bears, was a sound that flooded her birth canal and made her want to extract that sound from his throat again and again. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, his icy eyes clouding with lust and want for her.

She pulled him closer, his starched white shirt crinkling. "A lunch date with your favorite Amazon," she whispered in his ear before pushing him back into his chair.

He laughed again. "I'm game," he said.

"I'll bet you are," she replied, already undressing him with her eyes.

When they burst out of the door, Liz was just making her way back to her desk. As they blew past her, Bruce threw over his shoulder, "Hold my calls!" Then Diana pulled him into the elevator by the collar of his trench coat, and she could see them kiss for a split second before the compartment closed.

Liz stood there, dumbfounded. She stumbled back to her desk and put all of her boss's calls on hold. One thought went through her head:

_At least now I know why he was smiling._

Bruce and Diana wove their way to the attached multilevel private parking lot as Bruce pulled his keys from his pocket. They approached his parking space and Bruce slid into the driver's side while Diana situated herself in the passenger seat of his black Aston Martin Vanquish. The car purred as he started it up and pulled out of the large lot, weaving his way through Midtown noon traffic.

He pulled up in front of a nice, formal Italian restaurant that he owned, and offered his hand to Diana—simply a gentlemanly gesture to help her out of the car. For some reason, it made her heart ache when he acted chivalrously, almost like he was afraid that he would break her if he touched her, or that she was a hallucination and he was still before the Court of Owls, going insane, and that if he touched her she might dissipate onto the autumn breeze. She felt the urge to touch his hand bare, skin-to-skin, in the hope that the gesture would reassure him that she was really, truly here, and that she wasn't going anywhere. Actually, what might convince him better is if he felt her clamp down on his cock in a screaming… She killed _that_ particular thought before it could make her blush.

They walked in, hand in hand, and the maître'd's usual greeting died in his throat as he saw who was walking in.

"Table for two, please. Upper floor, outside," he requested smoothly as a snake, his voice brooking no argument.

"Signor Wayne," the maitre'd bowed.

After exchanging a mirth-filled glance, Bruce and Diana followed the average, twenty-five year old Italian to the second floor of the restaurant, and outside to the balcony, which was made of reinforced glass and overlooked the Gotham Central Park. He set up two menus in a hurry on a small table in the corner, standing by nervously as Bruce pulled out the chair for Diana, who accepted graciously, after which Bruce sat down.

An hour later, two empty plates sat in front of them as Bruce recounted particularly humorous tales to a hysterically laughing Diana of Dick Grayson's training days as Robin. The balcony was deserted; the restaurant manager knew well how much his employer valued his privacy. Bruce loved to hear he woman he loved laugh, so he told things about the first Robin's childhood and adolescence that Dick probably wouldn't forgive him for telling.

Then Diana told about things hilarious and awkward that happened on Themiscyra while she was growing up, things that made Bruce in turn laugh, until they were both in stitches. Everything was going so well, and Diana radiated happiness as Bruce and she left the restaurant and went back to the office.

That is, until they saw who was standing in Bruce's office.

Standing at 6'4" with the build of a linebacker, hidden under a dark blue suit and maroon tie, soft blue eyes beneath round wire-rimmed glasses, so full of rage that he was literally trembling, was Clark. A very angry Clark.

He rounded on Diana. "I offer to spend my life with you, and not only do you turn me down, but you turn around and date my best friend!?"

"I date whom I want, and it wasn't you!" she snapped back at him.

"You little Amazonian whore!" yelled Clark, bringing his hand back to slap her across the face.

But to his and Diana's amazement, Bruce pulled Clark's arm back with his gloved hand and drove his palm directly through the Kryptonian's elbow, and with a sickening snap, he broke Clark's arm. Then he went under the broken arm, twisting with his famous dexterity and punched hard into Clark's face, breaking his nose before kicking through Clark's kneecap, breaking the bone and driving it out through the other side of Clark's leg. While the reporter sank to the floor in surprise and unbelievable pain, Bruce pushed the red button beneath his desk that would send his personal security guards into the office. Seconds later, they came in through the office door.

"Security," Bruce said. "Take Mister… Kent here, and throw him out." His voice was deathly calm, like a knife being drawn from its sheath.

"I'll get you for this, Bruce! You stole her from me! And you'll pay for this too, you harlot!" yelled an irate Clark as the security guards dragged him from the office.

Bruce's eyes flashed dangerously. "Security," he called. "Halt momentarily." When they did, Bruce strode forward with a deadly grace and backhanded Clark so hard, the Kryptonian brute's head jerked to the side, and he spat out blood. Bruce then crouched and said in a venomous whisper, "If you ever so much as _look_ at her again, breeding will be one less thing for you to worry about. Take him away," he said to the guards. Whatever retort Clark was going to offer died on his lips at the sight of Bruce's murderous eyes flashing, and he instead shivered with the force of his former friend's icy glare that could teach the Fortress of Solitude a thing or two about low temperatures.

Bruce rushed to Diana, closing his office door after Clark, with immense concern in his eyes. "Diana," he asked. "Are you alright?"

Diana wiped tears she didn't realize she'd been shedding from her face, nodding. When Bruce continued to try and comfort her, she kissed him hard. He backed up, arms around her, hands everywhere, realizing what she needed right then in a way that Clark never could. Bruce pressed the automatic lock button on his desk, and she undid the zipper of her jumpsuit, turned on by how willing Bruce was to defend her even when she didn't really need defending and the only thing hurt was her pride. Clothes went flying everywhere. It was supposed to be a quickie, but it was still a full hour before they came together in the office chair, facing the city.

"How did you do that to Clark?" Diana asked when she was zipping up her jumpsuit again.

In response, the clothed Bruce pulled a cylindrical lead capsule from his inner coat pocket, where it was easily accessible. He showed her the glowing green crystal that lay within the open capsule. When she rolled her eyes, he smirked and capped the cylinder before storing it back in his coat.

"See you tonight," she said, kissing her new paramour one last time before leaving.

Bruce stood there for a few seconds with a grin on his face before he restored the grim set to his face. Yes, he would see her tonight; he had monitor duty on the Watchtower. He made a mental note to bring his Type 4 ultra-dense kryptonite with him in case he ran into Clark. He doubted it.

Meanwhile, an administrator sat on the top floor, watching the whole thing unfold.

_Master,_ it sent.

_**I saw, **_came the reply. _**Kal-El could be a valuable asset to our cause. Let's work on bringing him into the fold.**_

_Yes, Master,_ acknowledged the shady administrator. He went back to his job.

Elsewhere, in a dark, cold void, behind an expressionless white mask, the Master smiled. Everything was going according to plan.

_**AN: Okay… so that happened. Sorry if it's kind of OOC, I just tried to make it as in character as I could for the sake of the story. Next chapter, our heroes get a new ally. Please, PLEASE R&R, for the love of Rao!**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**AN: Sorry if you guys didn't like the last chapter. Just, whenever Superman goes totally ballistic, it's because Lois died. So, just keep that in mind. Also, the special kryptonite was a spawn of arguments on YouTube in which it was apparent that kryptonite is inconsistent. The density of said kryptonite is my imagined explanation for said inconsistency. I do not own DC. Please R&R. Enjoy!**_

In the Arctic region of the planet Earth, there existed an immense crystalline structure. It was nigh on impregnable, and the crystals it was formed from were native to a dead planet fifty light-years away. This was the Fortress of Solitude, and within it sat one of the last sons of Krypton, berating himself for losing his temper like that.

It had started innocently enough. After recovering from the shock of Diana's rejection, he followed her jet stream to see if he could talk to her, to see if they could talk through their relationship, to at least let him know what he'd done wrong. When he saw that she'd curved toward Gotham, he didn't pay it much mind. He knew that Bruce was the person Diana considered to be her best male friend, so instead of intruding and possibly making things worse, he'd gone back to his apartment, x-ray vision fixated on her apartment, and waited for Diana to return. When she flew in at ten in the morning, he knew something was up.

So the next day, as he saw her head out, he'd called in sick and brought a change of clothes before following a distance behind to see where she'd gone. When her trail ended at Wayne Tower, he was beginning to worry. He waited in Bruce's office for them to return—he knew instinctually they would—and when they did, his worst fears were confirmed. He'd seen the kiss they shared on the elevator ride up, watched them with his x-rays as they walked hand in hand to the office. So when he saw them come through the door, he was already shaking with rage and jealousy, seeing red. Then he'd called Diana those awful names, things that he'd never said, much less meant, and suddenly Bruce was there. He was stunned when, without even reasoning with Clark, Bruce had somehow managed to break his arm, his nose and his kneecap. It wasn't until Clark saw Bruce's eyes, more furious even than when, as Superman, he'd had to restrain him from killing the Joker after the madman killed Jason Todd.

So, after the red cleared his eyes, he felt absolutely mortified, and a profound sense of shame filled his heart. He could imagine how disappointed his human parents would have been to see him act that way. He flew all the way to his sanctum at the top of the world as his Kryptonian physiology and nanobytes snapped his arm, leg and nose back together. So now he sat, in his costume, upon a throne of crystal, trying to think of how he might apologize to his friends.

Finally, the Man of Steel stood from his seat and pulled a crystal from one console and put it into another. The console began recording his message to that crystal as he started to speak.

"Diana," he began. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that I acted like a total ass to you today. Of course, you're a grown woman and perfectly capable of making your own decisions. I don't know what came over me." He cast his head down and chuckled sorrowfully. "I guess I got jealous. Only the second time I've ever felt that emotion, first time being when Bruce and I had just met and he did a brief stint dating Lois. I… I don't deal well with jealousy or anger. They're really unfamiliar emotions to me, and since I didn't know how to deal with them, I completely lost control." He looked back up. "I was totally, one hundred per cent out of line. I hope that you can forgive me. And Bruce," he said, visualizing his friend's grimace. "I hope you can forgive me too. I crossed a line, I know that. I… I hope that we can still salvage our friendship. If not, then I wish you well. I wish you both happiness. Especially you, Bruce. Clark out." With that, he pushed in another snowy white crystal, which ejected the one he had recorded his message on. He flew through the Fortress, setting it down on his Watchtower teleporter, and keyed in the sequence to send it up to his personal quarters on the orbital station.

"Well, isn't this quaint?" a soft, musical and almost sexless voice said from behind him. "The Man of Tomorrow himself, here sending his ex-girlfriend and best friend a message."

Clark wheeled around to see a tall figure standing behind him, clad in a murky, shifting cloak with long ebony hair, a large black hood and what looked to be a smiling white mask on his face. "Who are you?" he asked the silhouette.

"I don't believe we've formally met," it said—Clark noted that when it spoke, the mask moved, as if it were his actual face. "Allow me to introduce myself," it said, removing the hood and bowing. "I, my dear boy, am called Astaroth, the Smiling Man. I bring greetings from my master, the great and powerful Mephistopheles, and an invitation to join our little motley crew. _Legio Mihi Nomen Est, Quia Multi Sumus._"

"Sorry," said Clark, punching the activation key of the teleporter behind him. "I don't join secret societies." He took a stance, preparing to fight.

"My dear boy," said the Smiling Man, never once losing his grin. "You don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice," spat out Clark.

"Well, I suppose you _DO_ have a choice," replied Astaroth almost thoughtfully. "Yes, on second thought, it seems you have two choices. Join Legion willingly," he said, pulling white-gloved hands from his cloak as blood-red pentagrams began to seal themselves onto the gloves. "Or join Legion against your will. My master believes you far too great an asset to his grand plan to simply be allowed the option of refusing our generous offer."

Clark flew into a charge directly at the grinning enemy.

"Yes, I thought as much," said Astaroth, sounding regretful though he still had that huge grin on his face. As Superman charged into the enemy, the Smiling Man exploded into tendrils of smoky darkness. Superman looked around, bewildered, as the demon reformed behind him.

"Kryptonians. You always amuse me," he said, bringing his gloved hands up into an "x" in front of his face. "In theory, indestructible, and certainly tough." Superman wheeled around at the sound of Astaroth's voice behind him. "But honestly," said the grinning demon, "you're quite a distance from incorruptible."

As Superman charged again, the shadowy man flipped his hands so that the pentagrams overlapped, and spoke one word as the seals glowed bright as fire:

_"Submitte!"_

Clark felt a searing pain on his chest, and he crashed to the ground, clutching at the House of El symbol there that was steadily being burned away, replaced by the bleeding symbol etched into the skin beneath that still flared like fire—a pentagram identical to the ones on Astaroth's gloves. As the Smiling Man laughed triumphantly, Clark visualized Diana's smiling face, and saw no more.

Batman walked through sterile white metallic hallways, a serious expression set upon his face. Not even Diana could get him to smile while he had the cowl on. It was a mindset, not a costume. Speaking of Diana, he thought. He, in fact, was heading to his own rarely used yet spotless suite on the Watchtower. Quarters, it appeared, that he and Diana would be sharing for the near future whenever both of them were on call in orbit. Barbara had the night in Gotham, glad to see her boss back to his old self again. As he turned the corner to the elevator that would take him to his suite level, (and yes, every member of the Founding Seven had a level dedicated to their quarters) his cloak flared around him. He opened the belt compartment that held his access key, and as soon as the elevator opened to reveal a blushing Dinah and a smirking Oliver Queen—who, upon laying eyes on Batman, quickly left—he stepped in, inserting his key chip into a slot above the floor number panel, and the door slid closed as he ascended the station.

When the door opened to reveal Batman's subdued suite, he was not at all surprised to find Diana there, looking out the large window that ran the length of the room, which was both the kitchen and the area that served as a parlor, complete with a small black walnut square table. She was dressed in her costume, her perfect backside tantalizing him. He pulled off his mask, letting his hair roll free, before sneaking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her from behind. She laughed, tracing the bat within his yellow elliptical insignia on his black chest top, and they kissed. She pushed him through the door into his bedroom, which he locked. Diana tore at his gloves as he took off his boots, then moving to his shirt as he undid his belt and took off his cloak. Then, turning to her, he took off her bustier, her perfect EE breasts flopping out into the air-conditioned room, her nipples hardening. His lips latched on to her breasts as she moaned out, and his hands pulled down her short shorts and tossed them across the room, joined shortly by her lasso and her boots. She turned them around and pushed him playfully onto his black bed with an ebony frame and crawled sexily up to his face. She situated her dripping slit above his mouth and lowered onto him, while she swung around and pulled down his tights, taking him into her mouth as his experienced tongue snaked out of his mouth and into her. She had a unique taste—sweeter than honey with an edge bitter as gall—and he couldn't get enough of it, plunging his tongue into her depths. After he ate her to three screaming orgasms, Diana gingerly lifted her sensitive box off his face, instead settling onto his rock-hard cock with a hiss. He reached up, playing with her nipples, pinching and twisting in such a way that it only aroused her more. She rolled her hips, then bringing herself up his pole and slamming down with a cry, doing this again and again as he met her stroke for stroke, going inside her so deeply, fucking her through orgasm after orgasm for four hours before he buried himself within her and let loose with an animalistic roar as she let slip a scream that belied a tremendous orgasm. She fell atop him, and they fell asleep in each other's arms.

An hour later, Bruce lay in bed next to Diana, watching her sleep. He had just woken up from a nightmare, and for once he wasn't seeing his father die again. He was watching, instead, Clark falling and being consumed by a grasping darkness.

_You can't save him, you know,_ came Lucifer's voice. _He's already gone._

When that happened, Bruce bolted awake. He'd spent the last ten minutes watching Diana sleep. When he was with her, he reflected, he could almost believe that he could be truly happy—and he was. But when she wasn't, in the increasingly rare moments that he spent alone, he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He knew that one day, he'd wake up once again to a cold bed, the brilliant days with Diana only a memory. She'd eventually leave him, as did seemingly every bit of happiness that ever came into his life; but he'd resolved not to push her away, to enjoy her and love her every day and night until that inevitable time came. He laid on his back, his black tights still on, gloves on the table, boots strewn on the floor at the end of the bed, shirt on the nightstand table, his cloak on the floor next to the bed, belt draped over the headboard. He watched her breathing as she laid within the black silk sheets. As his chest tightened with adoration, he looked up at the metal ceiling and, with fire in his icy blue eyes, dared the universe to try and take her from him.

Diana woke up to the sun dawning over Planet Earth below. She looked to her lover, the moon and night to her sun and day. She really did love it when he wore his hair long. It made him seem less hard, less severe. Gingerly and slowly, she let her feet touch the cool metal floor, getting up and stretching. She opened Bruce's mahogany wardrobe, picking out a white button-down shirt that she put on, walking carefully out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, making herself a cup of chamomile tea and sitting at the table in the parlor with it, nursing it thoughtfully as the sun brightened the sky. She set it down, removed her tiara and placed it on the table, and began rubbing her temples.

When the elevator door opened to reveal Zatanna Zatara, complete with her fishnet stockings and tuxedo top, but minus her top hat, Diana paid no heed to how she found her—clad in Bruce's shirt with only the middle button done, sitting with her bare legs crossed, teacup in hand.

"Is Bruce here?" Zatanna asked.

"He's sleeping," replied Diana.

"Good," said Zatanna with a sigh. "I wanted to talk to you alone anyways."

Diana cocked a beautiful eyebrow as Zatanna strode in, flaring her coattails out as she sat at the table, across from her.

"How long did he last with you?" the magician asked candidly.

"Four hours," Diana replied frankly, feeling quite uncomfortable with discussing her sex life with the daughter of Doctor Fate. She was even more perturbed when she saw Zatanna's mouth hanging open.

"Only four hours?" she asked, incredulous. "You must have some serious skills, Diana," she said with an edge of admiration in her tone.

"ONLY four hours?" repeated Diana. "Most mortal men can only last at most half an hour before they finish."

"But Bruce isn't any normal guy," said Zatanna. "He and I had sex a few times, though that is not an experience I wish to repeat. It was during an 'off' time with Catwoman. I swear, when she was alive, she was nothing but trouble. They were on and off more times than the fucking Guns 'n' Roses!"

"So… he was bad in bed?" asked Diana, brow furrowing in confusion.

"Not at all," breathed Zatanna. "You try having Bruce's dick railing you for ten hours at a time! Catwoman set the record at six, and Talia only ever made it down to eight."

"Our first time, Bruce only lasted two hours," Diana said sheepishly.

Zatanna's eyes nearly popped out of her skull. "That tears it," she said. "You win the contest."

Diana's curiosity was piqued. "What contest?"

"Well, we girls had a contest going. Whoever could get Bruce to lose it fastest would get uncontested dating rights to him. Looks like you won."

"Why all the fuss over getting a man to cum?"

"Because, according to Bruce, and I quote, 'tantric meditation has its perks.' Those of us that aroused him the most and he felt most for were the ones who ever came even close to cracking his self-control. I kept trying to, but experiencing his prowess should really only be occasional. I kept feeling like I was going to throw up from him brutalizing my organs from inside me."

Diana nodded thoughtfully.

"Just, make sure you have some damn good birth control when you're with him," Zatanna said.

"Okay, this is quickly becoming too surreal," said Diana.

"Just, hear me out," Zatanna cautioned, putting up a cautionary hand. "You know Talia? Who I was just talking about? Well, I've seen the things the Lazarus Pits do to the female reproductive system, and… it isn't pretty. When Talia laid with Bruce, she was totally barren, her eggs twisted and mutated with the stress placed upon them by the chemicals of those forsaken baths. And yet Bruce still got her pregnant. Not only that, but she had me help her weaken the child—lest the child she was carrying kill her while she was giving birth to it. Thus, Halle-fucking-lujah, Damian Wayne entered this world. What I'm saying is the only way I didn't get pregnant was with magic, and Catwoman because her uterus was damaged as a child."

Diana nodded. "Hippolyta should know a sure contraceptive."

Zatanna let out a breath. "Good." She turned, about to get out of her seat, but thought better of it. "One last thing," she said. Her grey eyes turned stony and serious. "If you leave him for any reason, Diana, I will hound you to the ends of the universe. Bruce… he's seen more heartbreak and horror than anyone should ever have to. He deserves to be happy. And I'll be honest, he seems more happy now than I've ever seen him. But know that he's expecting it. He'll love and cherish you, but he believes you'll leave him like every other iota of happiness in his life. His relationship with Catwoman was destructive, no other way to say it. Every time she broke it off with him, he just sank further. You have his heart in your hands. Don't blow it." She walked into the elevator, but stopped at the threshold. "And don't you dare try to have his child until he's damn sure you won't disappear on him." With that, she walked into the elevator, which closed behind her. Diana stared after her, stunned.

"Who was that?" came Bruce's deep baritone. He walked into the kitchen with a case of bed-head that made her bite her lower lip with lust.

"Your old girlfriend Zatanna stepped in for some morning tea," said Diana, voice husky with want as she stared at the innumerable white scars criss-crossing his well-built bare chest.

She made up her mind.

"What do you say to a shower, then we head back to the manor?" asked Diana sexily, standing before him and dropping his shirt she'd been wearing.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said, a devilish grin on his face.

Alfred was in the Batcave when they ported in, dressed fully except for Bruce, whose mask was in his hand.

"Master Wayne," Alfred said. "There are two visitors here to see you. They say you should both come…" Alfred cleared his throat before continuing. "As you are."

Bruce looked up sharply and strode purposefully up the ramp. "If they want to see the Batman," Bruce said. "They're going to get him." Diana hovered behind Bruce, while Alfred gave a small sigh.

Bruce stormed up the stairs of the Batcave and out of the clock that concealed the entrance to the subterranean lair, striding almost wolfishly through the corridor and throwing open the front door to reveal…

"Bruce! It's been too long!" The man stood in a black business suit under a black trench coat, a red scarf covering the lower half of his face, his collar turned up, with two ivory-handled pistols in holsters under his arms, a long black cloak with a red lining, a wide-brimmed black slouch fedora on his head, a prominent nose and a pair of blue eyes that shifted and formed like mist.

This was Kent Allard.

The Shadow.

_**AN: Imaginary bag of medical blood to whomever saw that one coming! Yes, I did rip some of Astaroth's dialogue from Hellsing Ultimate. A second bag of imaginary medical blood to whomever caught the Romeo and Juliet reference. Don't bother if you only saw the Baz Luhrmann version… eck. Only Zeffirelli viewers will get it. Ciao!**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**AN: Yo! Now, I realize many of you didn't like Chapter 4—working on a chapter at 2 AM does that—but now that the plot's going, I expect you'll like it. Besides, it was a bit of a heavy-handed attempt to try and find a quick, easy way to conjure up some drama. BTW, I wasn't very satisfied with Zatanna's cameo last chapter, so if anyone can give an inexperienced writer (AKA so green his pen is made of grass) pointers on how to fix that dialogue without compromising what's being said, I'd really appreciate it. Before we begin, I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear in case anyone tries to nitpick: The Shadow's actual alter ego IS Kent Allard, a world-famous aviator turned drug lord turned original masked avenger of the night, and not Lamont Cranston, an identity assumed so that he can blend in with New York's elite, and because Allard was originally thought to have died in South America. I do not own DC. And here… we… GO!**_

Diana wondered what was wrong as she saw Bruce turn pale at the sight of the strange man in the doorway. Even more so when he actually began to speak to the man in a shaky voice, which was totally unlike him.

"K… Kent. Please, come in," Bruce invited. "You're welcome too, Ms. Lane."

Diana perked up at that. "Lois!" she called.

A tittering laugh was her response. "No, Diana. Lois is my niece. My name is Margo. Margo Lane." The woman stepped forward, revealing herself to be almost as tall as her companion. She had a suitably curvy body, encased in a long maroon dress. Her hair was a light brown, and hung to her shoulder, framing a heart-shaped face and hazel eyes.

"Come in," said Bruce. Both of the visitors entered through the door, Kent's cloak flaring around him as he walked into the sitting room. Margo followed close behind. Bruce's eyes were still wide, which was a strange look considering he was still wearing his suit. He followed behind, gloved hand rubbing at his jaw. Diana was vaguely amused seeing her boyfriend—was that what he was now? — so flustered by the appearance of someone obviously from his past. But she was also very curious. Who besides her and Alfred could make Bruce eschew his famous decorum?

Bruce was dumbfounded as he sat down in a black leather sofa in one of Wayne manor's many sitting rooms. Diana sat down and curled up next to him, wrapping his gigantic cape around her. Kent and Margo sat in the seat across from him and Diana, and Alfred quickly excused himself under the pretense of getting them tea. His butler was just as surprised as he was.

Because Kent Allard was dead.

"Bruce," said the former vigilante. "You've grown out your hair since I last saw you. And I love the suit. Blue and grey were never really… your color."

"Kent," Bruce said. "You're supposed to be dead!"

"Margo and I both," responded the Shadow. "And yet, somehow Lucifer got Death to bring us back."

Bruce sat up straighter in his seat. "What do you know about Lucifer?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. The man's heart was… grey, muddled. He's completely amoral, I know that, and he's taken a fascination with you."

"Why?"

"He calls you 'the Phoenix', always rising from the ashes of tragedy. I remember when I saw you in the New York Stock Exchange when you were six, eyes like blue fire. I could tell then you'd grow to be a monstrous villain or a hard-edged hero."

"I'm no hero," Bruce replied. "All the people I couldn't save… their faces still haunt me." Diana looked up sharply. He ignored her. Here in front of him was a living legend, one of his childhood icons and foremost inspiration for taking up the mask of the _tengu_ in the first place. Hell, he'd even gone to Tibet just like the man in front of him had done fifty years before he was born in 1976. When Bruce had last seen the Shadow, he was a tired old man making his last rounds before dying. It was an important lesson for a twenty-six year old Bruce, that no hero, no matter how great, lived forever. It led, in fact, to him adopting an eleven-year-old Dick Grayson a year later.

"No one hero may save everybody. If a thousand thousand heroes tried, not everyone would be saved. Suffering and death is as constant as love and life." Kent leaned back thoughtfully. "I guess you could say they work in a sort of balance."

_You couldn't be more right,_ came an echoing British voice from everywhere. Then the room flashed in a blinding light, and standing in the center of a great stain of soot upon the Persian rug were Lucifer and Morpheus.

"**I cannot believe I let you drag me into this, Morningstar**," said the tall, pale man in a voice like the gentle flowing of water.

"_Scrap it, Morpheus. If he wins, _you _cease to exist as well as I._" Lucifer stopped to take a look around. "_We're all here. Good._"

"**Please make this quick. I have a pub meeting to attend,**" sighed Morpheus.

"_Come, now, your meeting with Hob isn't until 2089._"

"**Like you have said, the universe itself might be ending, so I'm not going to go without saying goodbye to an old friend who thinks I'm still dead.**"

"_Anyways,_" continued Lucifer. "_Now that we're all here, I need to tell you all something. Normally, I'd kick myself for even _thinking _to interfere with the affairs of humans, but this concerns us all._"

"What is it?" asked Bruce, his eyes watching the golden man's every move.

"_During the Dreaming Interregnum five years ago,_" Lucifer looked pointedly at Dream. "_There was a security breach. Someone has stolen the Key to Hell. Now, we didn't think much of it, but the thief's been an enterprising bastard. So, we need your _particular_ talents. That and Michael wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I didn't do _something _to fix this. So I bribed Death to bring back the Shadow and his… uniquely talented partner, Ms. Lane, to help you and Diana out, Bruce._" Lucifer paused. "_I can't really do much in the way of actual fighting, seeing as the thief has usurped my throne and fire doesn't work that well on what you lot will be facing. I'm not a warrior like the King of All Night's Dreaming here._"

"This is all going very existential far too fast. If someone is usurping the throne of Hell, what about Etrigan?" asked Bruce.

"_Ah, Etrigan. A most… delightful… demon,_" Lucifer said with a wince. "_Being bound to Jason Blood, he has been exiled from Hell and cannot find the Gates thereof. However, even though he's already on the case, he's not going to be able to stop the Gathering Storm, as the thief terms it. An original name if I've ever heard one,_" remarked Lucifer sarcastically.

"Okay, then what makes you think I can do it? I mean, besides being able to knock Clark flat on his ass with proper planning?" asked Bruce.

Lucifer laughed. "_I've been watching you, Bruce. You are the only… living… being I know of who can withstand the bondage spells the thief has at his command. But in case you should fail—of which there is a 73% chance—I would advise you two to make some preemptive farewells before rallying the Justice League. You're going to want, however, to rally them here…_" said Lucifer, taking a deep breath, "_...because the Gates of Hell are directly below the place you call Arkham Asylum._"

Bruce barked out a laugh. Then he laughed. Then he _laughed_. Hard.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Just seems so… I don't know! How do you deal with the knowledge that the place you've sent lost souls and dangerous psychotic criminals to for years in the hope that they'd improve is literally right above the Gates of Hell?"

"**Keep calm, and carry on?**" suggested Morpheus's ethereal voice, a small smile on his face.

"You're right," admitted Bruce, a serious expression instantaneously back on his face like someone flipped a switch. "So, the Shadow and the Bat against the Legions of Hell. Any more info you can give us?"

"_I'm sorry,_" said Lucifer. "_But my contacts have been going dark across the universe and through Heaven and Hell. What I've told you is all I've been able to find._"

"So that's it?" asked Diana, beating Bruce to the proverbial punch.

Lucifer turned to her, fixing her with a glare from his dilated eye, looking like a black void ringed with blue fire. Diana shivered, his gaze making her feel like she had a cold, wet snake making its way up her spine. "_Yes, my dear Diana,_" said Lucifer at last. "_The rest is up to you, the Shadow, Ms. Lane and the Phoenix._" And in a flash, Lucifer was gone, and lingering in the air was an echo that sounded very much like him saying '_Good Luck._'

Dream looked around, which was a strange sight because it made the stars in his eyes stay completely stationary even though his head turned. It reminded Diana of Donna's favorite outfit—a window to eternity. She shook from her head swirling, half-formed questions about Donna's well-being—she had also been searching for their two sisters that had been sent back to Themiscyra with Dick Grayson in Italy—and was startled when Dream addressed her.

"**She is fine,**" he said. "**Currently, she is dreaming about her new boyfriend, with whom, and if I'm seeing this right, she is currently in bed with.**"

"How did you do that?" asked Diana. He shook his head, smiling, as a response. Her answer came directly into her mind.

**Where does a dream go when it dies?** he asked her mind. **All dreams, every half-formed thought enters my realm. A realm which is both within and without me.**

Diana shook her head quickly, trying to get the soft voice out of her head. She looked up at Bruce, gazing at her intently, and then turning to Dream, nodding. One of the perks of dating the World's Greatest Detective, she thought. Full disclosure.

"**Now, I do apologize, but I really must be getting on. I have a friend waiting for me at a pub. In the East End of London.**" And with that, Dream melted into the air, gone like a forgotten nightmare.

"Sir, I do believe I have enough tea for every… Good gracious! What in the name of Her Majesty happened to the rug?" asked Alfred, carrying a large silver tray with a porcelain teapot and four teacups. He sat it on the coffee table at the far side of the room, rushing to inspect the damage done to the priceless rug.

Hours later, Bruce was gripping Diana by her upper arms, now in a tan turtleneck and khakis with expensive Italian brown leather shoes, pressing his mouth to hers. If he lived to be a hundred, he said to himself, he'd never tire of this. Her raven hair flowing in the wind, catching the light of the setting sun, her soft, full lips pressed against his. The invisible jet idled, prepped and ready for its owner in the background. He broke the kiss, releasing her.

"Have fun visiting Themiscyra," Bruce said, his proverbial mask firmly in place. Diana could see it, since Zatanna had, in a way, taught her to notice it. His face was stonily set, betraying nothing, and yet his eyes told her his emotions. They were normally like chips of solid ice, but now they were like a lake which had only its top layer frozen, and beneath they churned, turbulent with trepidation, nervousness, but, most heartbreakingly, resignation.

She reached up, laying her hand on the side of his face. She saw him lean into her hand, closing his eyes and inhaling. "I'll only be gone for a few days," she said soothingly. "I'll always come back to you, my love." She watched his eyes change but a little, saw that though he seemingly wanted to believe her, to the abandoned child sleeping stillborn within his soul, her promises were still just empty words. It made her feel more than a little helpless. Resolving to do what she could, she pushed a stray lock of hair out of his face and gave him a short kiss. "Don't you dare get a haircut while I'm gone."

She turned and ran off to her transport, waving to him. Bruce waved back, feeling his heart go with her. He turned and went back to the Manor. Maybe patrolling with his childhood icon tonight would take his mind off of Diana's absence. In the meantime, he resolved to video chat Dick to see how he was making out, since his time as Batman Euro was over and he was back in his Nightwing costume conducting a search with Donna.

Diana felt guilty for leaving Bruce, but felt it couldn't be helped. Zatanna's warning about his fertility sort of struck an odd sort of home, and besides, Hippolyta deserved to know she was in a relationship with him… the reasons, _good _reasons, abounded. But all she could think of was Bruce standing there, his back to her, looking over the precipice into the abyss of the cave, so alone, so abandoned.

Meanwhile, in a bedroom in an Italian villa by the sea owned by Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson opened his eyes, gazing at the dark head of hair on the girl—no, _woman_—sleeping next to him, an expression of post-coital bliss still on her beautiful Amazonian face. Dick traced the soft curves of her body, her star-field sleeveless low-cut V-neck jumpsuit on the back of the headboard.

She stirred, and blue eyes as clear and fierce as the northern sky opened.

"Morning, Dick," she said dreamily. "Last night was… amazing."

Dick laughed. "Good morning to you too, Donna." Donna Troy and he had been trying out a relationship for two weeks, every day stopped off by a night of amazing sex. Since Koriand'r had gone back to Tamaran and Donna's marriage to Kyle Rayner had fallen apart in the wake of his most recent Kyle/Ion identity crisis, they had acted upon their mutual attraction, and Dick honestly didn't know where their relationship was going to go. But unlike his father, Bruce, he was willing to find out.

You know how they say "Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear?" Just then, Dick's open laptop began playing Verdi's Requiem on the nightstand, signaling an incoming video call from the Batman himself.

"You talk to your dad, and I'll go take a shower," Donna said, standing up and revealing her naked form to him again. She wasn't as busty as Diana—but then, who was—but still carrying a pair of DD breasts that suited Dick just fine. Her form was statuesque like her sisters'—meaning her other Amazon sisters—and with a backside that was taut and firm. She was also sporting a six-pack and a very muscular body. Dick had to admit that when it came to what happened between the cream-colored sheets, Donna was a natural. Better than Kori, in fact.

He watched as she ran her hand through her hair before reaching down and ruffling his own newly regrown locks. According to what Donna told him, Amazons had a thing for long hair on a guy, or at least, the ones who hadn't isolated themselves from Man's World or were Sisters of Sappho, as she put it. Go figure.

After watching her hips sway all the way into the master bathroom, Dick straightened his own hair and put it into a rogue knot before answering the video call. "Bruce," he called out as he saw his adoptive father's face. What's with the long hair, he thought. "How're you doing?"

"Been better, Dick," responded Bruce from thousands of miles away. "The search for Diana and Donna's biological sisters has ended. Found them with Zsasz in Gotham two weeks ago. Just getting back to the cave now. Three months is a lot of time for monitor duty to pile up. I've been up at the Watchtower for the past week and a half. Hope you and Donna aren't at each other's throats."

If Bruce had been a different person, like Victor, for instance, Dick would have thought that he was making a joke about how often Dick and Donna's volatile personalities exploded when in each other's company. But this was Bruce. Bruce very rarely made jokes, if ever. Excepting at high-society functions, of course, but that was an act.

"Actually, we've been getting on…" and off, Dick thought, "…pretty well, all things considered. In fact, there's something I need to tell you, Bruce."

"Are you going to join me, or what?!" yelled Donna from the shower.

"In a minute!" replied Dick, looking over his shoulder. When he turned back, Bruce looked like he'd been stricken, absolutely stunned. That was before he put his face in his hands and started laughing. Dick never liked it when Bruce laughed; it gave him the creeps.

"Of course," Bruce said, shoulders still heaving. "Of course _you're _Donna's new paramour. Couldn't get any bloody better, could it?" he asked sarcastically.

"What's up with you? Not like you to question my relationships."

"You're right, of course, Dick. Just found it ironic that you'd start dating Donna at about the same time Diana and I…" He trailed off. "Just go to her, Dick. We'll talk later. Batman out." He cut off.

Dick laid there, dumbfounded. Bruce dating Diana, who knew, he thought to himself. He had seen some sparks fly there a few times in the past, so he guessed it shouldn't have been a _huge _surprise.

"DICK!" called Donna.

Dick snapped back to the present, dashing out of the bedroom with the grace of a veteran circus acrobat—which he was—and called out.

"Coming!"

Not yet, Donna thought as the hot water cascaded down her curvaceous form. But you will be. You will be.

The invisible jet cut across the ocean as Diana flew it toward Paradise Island. She was drilling herself, trying to find a way to tell her mother the identity of the man who she was dating without it totally and completely blowing up in her face. As she saw the docks of the hidden Amazonian stronghold appear before her, her dread only deepened. There was a time when Diana feared Bruce—all League members did after his contingency plans came to light. But that fear could not compare to the sheer terror with which she responded to the thought of her mother's anger.

She landed the jet in the grove just inland of the docks. As she flew out of the parked aircraft and alighted upon the ground, a squadron of Amazons rushed to form a path for their princess to travel to get to the Temple of the Moon, where her mother resided as her seat of power. It was devoted to the virgin goddesses, whose symbols all oddly had something to do with the night.

She ascended the stairs of the Temple, flying directly into the arms of her mother, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.

"My little sun and stars," said the Amazon queen in her matronly voice. "It has been far too long since you have returned to us. Come, let us converse as we once did."

"Mother," Diana responded, terror forgotten for the moment. "It has indeed been too long since I have known the air of Themiscyra, so used have I become to Man's World." She reverted to the formal English her mother used, but it somehow didn't sound so stiff coming from her lips.

They walked through the Temple, the Amazonian honor guard disbanding to return to their respective posts. Diana followed her regal mother through to Hippolyta's private quarters.

"What is it that you wished to speak to me about so urgently, daughter? I take it you have broken off your association with the estimable Mr. Kent?"

"How did you know that, Mother?" Diana asked, amazed.

Hippolyta chuckled. "You do not smell of him, and your poise is quite different. The Kryptonian leaves a very sharp aura on you, one of crystal and unfamiliar sands. And you stand as if you are prepared to cheer up a beaten pup. So, which weakling are you seeing now?"

Diana sighed. She'd forgotten how perceptive her mother was, though she really shouldn't be surprised, since Artemis had gifted her mother with the senses of the Huntress. She decided to come out and just say it.

"It's Bruce Wayne. You know him as Batman."

"I am surprised, daughter. I indeed remember your comrade. He was a true warrior. I do approve of your match, more so than the Kryptonian who was more brawn than brain. But Batman… he could probably defeat Odysseus in a game of chess."

Diana was stunned into speechlessness. She hadn't expected her mother to approve, by Hera! Hippolyta laughed at her expression.

"Come, daughter, and sit with me. I can tell we have much to discuss."

Far away, Bruce turned from the Batcomputer, his second video call with Dick finished. He took off the clothes he had thrown on to see Diana off and instead walked to the Vault. He entered amongst a room full of gadgets and gadgetry, going straight to the back to his black costume. He donned his suit, making sure the yellow ellipse with the bat symbol was directly in the center of his pectorals, putting on his boots and gloves, clicking the yellow utility belt in place at his waist and setting his gigantic cape around his neck and over his shoulders. He held the mask in place for a second, staring at it before he slipped it on over his face and hair. He pressed against it to ensure it was placed correctly, selected a quantity of iron bladed batarangs alongside his usual arsenal of tools and tucked them into pockets along the belt, in case they ran into any low-level demons that night. He flared his cape, turning and striding down to the pad where the sleek all-black Batmobile was rising out of its recessed pedestal. He leaped into the cockpit, belted himself in, closed the cockpit and punched the throttle. With a roaring purr, the car rocketed out of the cave and onto the backroads leading to Gotham.

When he finally finished swinging his way around the city, he dropped to where the Shadow was standing, cloak aflutter in the wind. With a wink, the former vigilante—former dead man—leaped out into the darkness. Batman ran the rooftops, shadowing his partner. But out of the cathedral a group of a hundred red eyes stared out at the heros:

Demons.

**_AN: So, what'd you guys think of the Donna/Dick pairing? So anyways, the plot is thickening, congealing like a nice, red pool of... Never mind. R&R._**


	7. Chapter 7

_**AN: So glad the Donna/Dick pairing was so well received. And yes, John Constantine, Doctor Fate and Jason Blood will make cameos in subsequent chapters. However, I do not own DC. Also, there is a reveal in this chapter that probably no one was expecting, so PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! Anyways, let's go.**_

The Shadow was bolting across the rooftops when he came face-to-face with _it._ A willowy figure in what looked to be a white porcelain mask depicting the face of a desiccated corpse. It had long, silvery hair that flowed around it and a long black cloak that twisted and shifted. Lifting a white-gloved hand, it pointed toward the Shadow, and from its cloak, demons cloaked in darkness tore themselves from the expanse of the cloak. Kent thought fast, pulling out his custom .45 automatic twin pistols, dodging and weaving as he loaded them with clips of silver bullets that Bruce had lent him. He knew that Bruce didn't like guns, didn't like killing, but he gave him the tools to use his preferred weapons. He knew why, though.

The Shadow took aim and fired through the monsters again and again. Batman watched for a second, watching how his childhood hero twisted and writhed, tendrils of darkness slashing out from him and bloodying the demons. Of course, he knew that the image was simply a psychically projected illusion, but it didn't stop him from admiring Allard.

Batman saw his opening. Coiling his powerful legs, he shot into the air, spreading his cape like a pair of gigantic wings against the full moon. From him shot a pair of lightweight adamantium batarangs—adamantium being an iron alloy with all the characteristics of pure iron, simply stronger and lighter—out, and as they slashed through the ravening demons, the monsters turned to dust. He extended his legs, using the cape like a parachute, and nailed into one of the demons with so much force that the freak's eyes bulged before its head exploded into a dusty mess. He took his momentum and sprung up into a handstand, which he then manipulated into a textbook butterfly kick, bringing down another demon. He slid back, driving an elbow strike directly into the Adam's apple of another one, then turned and used his other arm to deliver a leopard blow into the face of yet another. He shoved his hand down onto the dead demon's head and vaulted over it, greeting a very surprised demon in the face with a roundhouse kick. Reaching into his voluminous belt, he tossed a mercury-plastique exploding batarang at the feet of a band of onrushing demons. They trampled over it, and the mercury went off like a charm, turning them to dust. Meanwhile, their master was just standing there, demons crawling from the twisting black expanse of its cloak.

"I am the demon Beelzebub," it spoke, monsters still crawling from it and attacking the shadowy duo. "Lord of the Flies. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, all thing shall age and die before my gaze!"

The demon's black eyeholes blazed purple before they shot directly out at Batman, who was in the middle of executing a move.

"NO!" shouted Kent, and black tendrils shot out of him, grabbing the Dark Knight and yanking him back. Batman was bewildered—the tendrils were not, in fact, illusions, but were instead actually corporeal. He shook off this observation and tactically evaluated the situation.

As the demons popped out, the darkness of his cloak began to shift and form tendrils until he became a murky, swirling black mass. However, no matter how he shifted or in which direction, Batman noticed that his masklike face stayed at the same height and remained stationary. He concluded that the mask that moved when he spoke kept him stable, and that by removing or otherwise breaking that mask, he would dissipate. A mask, then, of that importance probably required silver. He cursed at his carelessness, but then remembered the gift he had given the Shadow. He argued with himself for a few seconds, because he could see that he had no other way at the moment. Resolving to hate himself for it later, he reached out for one of Kent's guns as his tendrils pulled him past the former vigilante. Kent handed the gun, handle first, to Bruce. Letting him go, Kent used his tendrils for maximum effectiveness, tossing out spikes and shockwaves of a black, milky mass of pure darkness. Bruce took the initiative, running up the ramps provided by the Shadow's "tentacles," then leaping. Ignoring the voice in his head screaming at him not to use the gun, he put his left arm across his upper chest, leveling the right arm atop the left, taking aim at the six apparent high-stress points of the mask, and emptied six silver bullets which hit their mark spot-on. The demon screeched, the porcelain mask-face shattering into a half-dozen pieces. A beam of that same purple light broadsided Batman before Kent could pull him back, and he fell to the ground. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the demon's face becoming a twisting, writhing mass of ethereal tentacles, erupting from his head before he dissipated into dust in the wind.

_Bruce was dreaming. His father had just finished reading his favorite story, The Statue of the Old Man, to him. _

_ "Daddy?" asked a four-year-old Bruce. "Is there a Heaven?"_

_ His father shook his head. "No, Bruce," he said. "I don't think there's a Heaven."_

_ Bruce's curiosity was piqued. "Why not?"_

_ "Because, Bruce," his father sighed. "If there is a Heaven, then it follows that there must be a Hell. And I can tell you that whatever Hell is, it exists right here on Earth. Can't say the same for Heaven."_

_ "Then, is there a god?"_

_ "If you're asking if there's a big man in the sky telling us all what to do, then no, I don't believe that. I do believe that every man creates his own god, as surely as he must create his own place in the universe. My god is the look I see in a child's eyes after we've done our work on them. My god is the saving of lives. Eventually, Bruce, you'll find your own god, as surely as you'll find your own demons."_

_**"He's right, you know. In a sense," **__rang out Dream's voice._

_ The dream melted like water on a newly painted canvas. There was a white void left behind, and in that void, there was only a naked, full-grown Bruce and a Morpheus in a grey t-shirt and black jeans. _

_ "No, he was wrong," said Bruce. "There is a Hell."_

_**"Bruce,"**__ said Morpheus gently. __**"I've been around ever since the first planet dreamed of supporting life. That is a long time to have lived. And I can tell you, in no uncertain terms, that the true Hell is a lonely one. It is a life lived in solitude, lived without love. Extradimensional planes where human souls may torture themselves for all eternity aside."**_

_ "What about God? If there is a Lucifer, then there must be a God."_

_ Morpheus sighed. __**"God is far from all-powerful. No one being may control the fate of the cosmos, and even He is slave to the power of prophecy. My thinking is that your father was a brilliant man. I would love to have been able to know him."**_

_ Morpheus was walking back into the void, fading. Bruce sat on the—ground?—platform?—in a state of meditation, waiting for his inevitable return to the waking world. His god was Diana, he knew, and the love he felt for her. And his personal Hell was a world in which she was not there. He knew this now. All that remained was to wait._

"Etrigan!" yelled J'onn J'onzz, red eyes going wide with surprise. His Martian senses nearly went ballistic trying to confirm whom the stocky demon was carrying.

"I am Etrigan, Lord of Hell. In those pits did I dwell," said the demon, nodding. "This warrior one, he is in need. Do not falter because of your pursuit of my greed," he continued, referencing the bad blood between the Martian Manhunter and the half brother of Merlin.

"I will get him to the medical bay at once," he stated, staring bewilderedly at the unconscious form of Batman. His gaze flashed up to the one behind Etrigan. He was tall and attired mostly all in black. The only thing that was another color on him was the red scarf that covered his lower face beneath the nose. A wide-brimmed slouch fedora, double-breasted trench coat, leather gloves, expensive-looking Italian shoes, business pants and a large cloak were all the garments that were visible upon the stranger to the naked eye. When he tried to dive into the stranger's mind, he found himself in his own, creating a feedback loop of thought that he cut off as soon as he learned what was happening.

Etrigan, J'onn and the stranger walked along the sterile hallways of the Watchtower, heading directly towards the onboard hospital. Once there, Etrigan laid Batman upon one of the beds. J'onn slowly slipped off the mask, revealing a body looking for all the world like a hundred-year-old Bruce. However, his heart was beating as strongly and vitally as a thirty-two year old man's was. Before the Martian Manhunter's stunned eyes, Bruce's hair began to turn from white to an iron grey, his face began to pull taut, and slowly Bruce was being turned into a young man again.

Below, on Themiscyra, Diana was walking with her mother, Queen Hippolyta. They were as different as sun and rain. Where Diana's hair was dark, Hippolyta's were gold. Where Diana looked delicate, Hippolyta was what most people envisioned when they thought "Amazon". Where Diana's eyes were stormy and azure as the Mediterranean, Hippolyta's were the color of blued steel. But nevertheless, they loved each other as only parent and child could.

"Every warrior has his weaknesses," spoke Hippolyta. "And every good warrior carries scars, physical or otherwise. It is the mark of a true man of war that only his mate might see what lays within. You have done well for yourself in choosing the man who wears the skin of a bat."

"I know, Mother. There are simply times when he looks at me and I feel completely helpless. I feel like he's expecting me to leave him, and there's little I can do to convince him otherwise," responded Diana.

Hippolyta nodded. "It is the swordsman's way to expect a blow that his opponent has only shown himself capable of executing. Only time, my daughter, shall heal the wounds your ice-eyed Dark Knight bears in silence."

Diana blew a lock of hair from her face dejectedly. She was hoping her mother would be able to give her some _helpful _advice on dealing with Bruce.

"Do not, however, be so absorbed with trying to heal him that you forget to cherish the moments you both share, daughter," continued Hippolyta. "You have chosen to love a mortal, and all mortals must die beneath the weight of age. Your days with him are numbered, so do not leave your happiness to save his, for to him that shall cut deeper than any knife or betrayal."

Diana silently considered this as Hippolyta left her in the garden. What would she do when Bruce inevitably breathed his last? He was the moon to her sun, her match in battle, in many ways her polar opposite; but more importantly, he was her mate. Whether or not they were married by the laws of Man's World, it mattered not. It was a kind of metaphysical matrimony, a chemical compatibility. He was her friend, guide, love and lover. Her world revolved around him as much as she knew his world revolved around her. So what would she do once her center of gravity was gone?

The answer came in a voice not unlike Zatanna's. She would stay with Bruce, savor each moment with him until he died, and then deal with the aftermath when it came. She already knew that she couldn't leave him—the very idea of it was abhorrent to her. But she would enjoy her time with her match while it lasted.

Her communicator went off. She took it from her belt and flipped it open, revealing J'onn J'onzz's strained face.

"What is it, J'onn?" asked Diana.

"It's Batman," J'onn responded. Diana felt her heart fill with dread. "Something has happened. He… his biomedical scans tell us he's… well, you should really come up and see for yourself. J'onn out."

Diana knew she had to cut her visit short. She flew as quickly as she could back into the floating temple that held a personal teleporter into the Watchtower, since no man was allowed to stand on Themiscyran ground unless in the event of absolute emergency. She keyed in for the main teleporter room, running into the column of light that erupted when she pressed the button.

Once aboard the Watchtower, she flew past all of the heroes and heroines that manned the Justice League. She twisted and wreathed through the air, attempting to reach her beloved with as much haste as a riled Amazon could muster. She didn't even notice the tears of pure fear on her face until she was already three quarters of the way to the medical bay. She wiped them from her face—gods forbid Bruce be awake and see her crying—and continued on, faster than before.

The Shadow was sitting in a sterile chair in the corner of the room containing his de facto apprentice's hospital bed. He remained there when the door slid open to reveal Bruce's girlfriend, Diana. No, that wasn't the right term. Not strong enough. He saw the way they looked at each other, and he was reminded of an old Shakespeare line—_like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume. _The chemistry between them permeated the air with pheromones and psychic waves. She quickly flew over and pressed her lips to his, and just like that, Bruce's eyes flickered open, his face and body completely restored with no interference on their part.

He looked to the center of the room, where J'onn was looking at a display of Bruce's blood on a digital screen, looking as alarmed as a Martian could conceivably look. The Shadow sent a psychic pulse to Etrigan—now in the form and identity of Jason Blood—sleeping quietly in the other corner of the room. The Arthurian knight's eyes bolted open, as he stood, adjusting his tan blazer and the black turtleneck he wore beneath.

"Jason Blood," began J'onn. "What kind of magic did you say was upon Batman when Mr. Allard brought him to you?"

"Entropic magic," stated Jason, not missing a beat. "Demonic stuff, designed to permanently age a subject. Lord Beelzebub used it in his torture of vain souls."

"Look at him now," replied J'onn.

Jason's black eyes went wide. "Impossible," he muttered. Gold rings of runes began to spin around his wrists as he cast his hands above Bruce's reclined form. "The spell is being broken… No, more like cancelled. It feels like a biological agent."

"What I thought," said J'onn, nodding his bald green head. "Batman's blood sample is showing high levels of a chemical I've never seen in a human body before. It appears that it's being manufactured by Batman's body."

Bruce's gaze shot up. "What is it?" he asked shortly.

"See for yourself," said J'onn, taking a computer tablet connected to the screen and handing it to Bruce. "It seems to be a regenerative, restorative enzyme permanently bound to Batman's body chemistry and being secreted from seventeen different glands—glands that, of course, show up in no study of the human anatomy recorded from any time in human or Martian history."

Bruce's eyes widened in recognition. "Lazarus," he whispered. "My body's manufacturing the Lazarus chemical."

_**AN: Dun, dun, DUN! Plz don't hate me! Next chapter we explore what it's like to have a body that synthesizes the Lazarus enzyme. Till next time! Got some medical blood sitting there in the corner that's lookin' at me funny. Ta!**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**AN: Wow… no hail of batarangs. Color me impressed. So anyways, this one has a plot twist (surprise, surprise), so please tell me what you think. I own nothing.**_

Bruce sat in his quarters, staring out at Planet Earth below. The Shadow sat across the table from him, waiting patiently for him to say something. He could feel the man's discomfort radiating off of him in psychic waves. His masters in Nepal and Tibet had often told him that the stronger the mind, the stronger the pulse. If that were true, then Bruce Wayne had one of the strongest minds he had ever encountered—and that was without training in astral projection or mindreading. True, Bruce's psychic defenses were top-grade, making him immune to the effects of mind control and telepathic attack, but the more aggressive applications of the mind were still alien to him. Despite this, his moods were like an open book, and the Shadow knew that he had to get something off his chest.

"When I was twenty-five," Bruce began. "Four years into my life as Batman, I ran up against an eco-terrorist named Ra's Al Ghûl. He was brilliant, resourceful and unbelievably old. He had been using a naturally occurring spring called the 'Lazarus Pits' to extend his life for over five hundred years. Over that time, he amassed a gigantic fortune and built a shadow organization called the League of Assassins with the sole purpose of wiping out two thirds of the human population on Earth. The motive behind this was to restore the planet to a pollution- and corruption-less state. His daughter, Talia, who also had access to the Lazarus Pits, was the mother of my son, Damian. The Pits are… strange. They restore vitality to every cell, yes, but the process itself is degenerative and places an immense strain upon the mind. Ra's knew this, and only used the Pits sparingly. They could heal any injury and restore youth, yes, but in return you got a nasty bout of temporary insanity. Such was his fate several times over his long life. I believe you might have known him under the alias 'the Golden Master'."

The Shadow nodded. "Shiwan Khan, I take it, was a persona driven by such temporary madness?" he said, interested to hear talk of his old archenemy.

"He was," said Bruce. "I myself knew the feeling of being immersed in a Lazarus Pit. If you're not inherently healthy enough, the strain _will _kill you. I needed it because my back was broken in a fight with a criminal called Bane. Long story. But that was the only time I ever used it, and since then I haven't slowed down one iota from the weight of age upon me. Hell, I'm forty-seven years old and Batman, but I don't have a single grey hair!" He took a breath. "When I first mapped out my own anatomy, I had seventeen extra glands. I thought nothing of it, since they were empty. As far as I can figure, the Lazarus enzyme has bonded with my body chemistry and is being secreted in much the same way as testosterone or adrenaline, keeping me young but not healed." Bruce buried his face in his gloved hands. "I can't age. I can't die of disease. I can only be killed in battle, given the chemical makeup of this particular form of the enzyme."

The Shadow reached over, putting a gloved hand on Bruce's cape-covered shoulder. "I too have a burden. You know when you saw me in combat? When I was brought back from oblivion, Lucifer bound me to a human body identical to my own. But in reality, being this form of undead makes me nothing more than thoughts, emotions and memories bound together by a net of psychic energy. I'm less a man and more an entity, a force. Even I do not know all the facets of my own nature." The Shadow stood up. "Bruce, there are worse burdens to carry then that of an eternity you can spend with one you love." And Kent Allard walked out, leaving Bruce alone with his mantle and his thoughts.

Diana sat in her own room for the first time in weeks, sipping at a tea her mother had taught her to make. It was called tansy liquor, and it was a contraceptive that was strong enough to work on Amazon biology. She remembered how her heart had nearly burst when she thought Bruce was mortally wounded, her time in a metaphorical Elysium cut tragically short. But Bruce was fine, although what was found in his blood alarmed him to the point where he shut himself inside his room, alone. She was shocked from her reverie when the elevator door opened, revealing the Shadow coming to speak with the Amazon princess.

"Princess Diana," he said. "I suggest you go to him now." And with that, the enigmatic old warrior closed the elevator door and disappeared. She waited with baited breath for five minutes before rushing to the elevator and ascending to Bruce's floor.

Bruce stared out at the Earth, waiting for Diana. When the doors to the elevator opened, he saw her reflected in the glass—a sheer white short-sleeved blouse with tight blue jeans and black, practical heels. Without turning, he began to speak.

"Did I ever tell you about how I was before my parents were gone?" he asked, knowing full well he hadn't. "He was a good, kind man, my father, but even he lost his patience with me. I was a right brat back then, willful, hardheaded and arrogant. There was one time when my father had said we could go see a movie. Tyrone Power in "The Mark of Zorro" in color. My favorite film." Bruce drew a breath. "My father had to cancel the day before. Someone was getting some kind of surgery, I don't precisely remember. They had it planned and had specially requested my father to operate. I was furious. I yelled all kinds of things at my father—said he cared more about his job than me, that he had promised, all while he and my mother tried to get me to listen to reason. I would have none of it, so I ran off, tears in my eyes, and told my father I hated him, locking myself into my room.

"We went through breakfast the next day silently. I was no longer angry, but I wasn't letting it go. That lasted until six that evening, when my father told me to get dressed because we were going to the movies after all, and that my dad had gotten someone else to fill in for him. That's when the guilt hit. Alfred drove us to the theatre, my dad trying to start up a conversation. I said nothing. How could I ever pronounce how sorry I was for being such a selfish bastard? So I sat through the movie in silence, resolving to try to tell him. We walked out of the movie theatre at midnight—it was a ten o'clock showing—when I was just about to tell him how I was so incredibly sorry, as if it would help one damn bit. But I was interrupted by some mugger—probably just looking for cash to feed his children, or something like that out of desperation. I still remember how his gun shook, how this was clearly his first time and he was nervous. My dad tried to calm him down, but that only shook him up more as he demanded cash and jewelry. I guess his trigger finger twitched, because the gun rang out with a bang, and my father fell. He shot my screaming mother, too, probably spooked. I was shocked, but before he could kill me, he ran off, probably so that he didn't pull the trigger and shoot a kid. My parents were dead before they hit the ground, as my legs gave out and I kneeled in a pool of their blood. I never got to apologize. So I wake up every morning with the knowledge that the last words I ever said to my father were 'I hate you.'" His voice cracked at the end.

Diana rushed forward, but he wasn't crying. She mentioned as much, and he barked out a short, harsh, cynical laugh.

"I don't deserve to cry," he said. "Not when my tears brought my parents' deaths, not when my selfishness caused another man to die. Because apparently the fill-in surgeon had been worked in the ER to the point of exhaustion, so the man died mid-op. A man with a loving wife, two small children and another on the way. My father paid for the surgery himself, because the guy was a Wayne employee, a security guard who could barely put enough food on the table to provide for his family because of the recession going on then. So I doomed not only my parents, but also a desperate man to death because I couldn't care about anyone but myself. That's why I could never kill the Joker. No matter what I said, _that's _why. Because at least the Joker has some sort of purpose in all his killings. I killed callously, out of selfishness. I deserve death more than he does. I'm a monster. That's why you and everyone else says I keep expecting them to leave me. Because that's all a monster like me deserves, and I knew once I found out about that particular fact that one day I'd wake up old and alone in a mansion populated by ghosts and memories, sleeping in a cold bed. A hardened, bitter old man who can't let go."

Diana went to him, wrapping her arms around him, trying her best to soothe him. "Whatever you might think, darling, you're not a monster. A monster wouldn't take in a young boy and help him find closure in the wake of his own parents' deaths. A monster wouldn't take in a recalcitrant orphan and try to reform him. A monster wouldn't help a young girl clear her father's name, or try to help all of the lost souls he encounters on his journey. A monster wouldn't help a young boy make his father walk again. A monster wouldn't try to help his unknown son who was pushed to the brink of madness in a struggle for perfection. A monster wouldn't say to himself that he was a monster. You are many things, my moon and night, but never a monster."

"Diana," he said. "I can't age anymore. Not for at least ten years now. I'll never be old, and I'll have to watch everything I care for fade to dust before me. I'm immortal."

"So am I," said Diana firmly. "And I will stay with you until the end of time, Bruce. I am yours and you are mine, come what may. You will not bear the weight of years alone."

"Are you sure?" said Bruce with a smirk that didn't reach his eyes, which showed only faint hope. She whipped his chair around.

"With you? Always." And she kissed him, not hard, but with tenderness, and she kissed her back. It was soul-searching, a communion of spirit and scars. Diana melted into it. This was her Elysium—here, with him.

_**AN: So, I was going to advance the plot, but I had a seizure of inspiration, so I instead crafted a fluffy filler more in line with my original idea, before I decided "if I shall write it, then it **__**must**__** have plot! So tell me what you think. R&R. Alucard out.**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**AN: Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. I kinda burned myself out, and then school started, and stuff got complicated, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitem. Point is, I'm gonna try to be back. So, shall we continue?**_

The second New Krypton hung in the sky, far beyond the notice of Kal-El, twenty thousand light-years into deep space. There, General Dru-Zod maintained a militarized order, having learned from his previous failure in the original New Krypton. It had taken some doing, but he had extracted the digitized information on Old Krypton and Kryptonian biology collected by the sentient computer database known as Brainiac, and from it he built a world orbiting a red sun, much like his homeworld. He stood in his silver tower besides his mate, Faora, looking out over the prosperous society he had created.

And then the sky darkened as the screams began.

Bruce was focused. He was calm. His emotions were without, leaving only his mind. He analyzed his opponent with the cold, flawless reasoning for which he was known. Vulnerable spots, check. Risk zones, check. Planning out the next fourteen steps of the fight as his grip on the _bokken _tightened, he leaped like a coiled snake into action. Bringing down the practice sword, he saw her dodge, laughing.

Perfect.

He swung his legs around, coiling them around the nubile ones of his opponent, bringing her down. She flung him off, as expected, no longer laughing. She was taking this seriously, then. That was good. He turned his arcing path into a reflection off of the practice room's far wall, launching himself back at her in preparation. She, once more as expected, diverted his path from her. He took advantage of this, though, grabbing her arms and swinging to plant a solid two-foot kick directly to her midsection, sending her flying. He dropped down, enacting immediately the next phase as he jumped up, grabbing onto the ceiling. She flew from the dent she had made when she hit the wall, angry now. At just the right moment, Bruce dropped down, driving his heels into the small of her back, bringing her to the ground. He plucked her lasso from her belt, binding her hands and resting the _bokken_ upon the back of her neck.

"Checkmate," he said. "Well done, Diana," he continued, untying her bonds.

"How? You've never beaten me so easily before," the Amazon princess remarked none-too-happily.

"Simple. I played off of your emotions and took gambits I wouldn't usually risk," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Like what?" she challenged.

"Like gambling on the assumption that I would be able to win this quite so quickly. A bad move against opponents with styles of combat sufficient to exploit it," he said.

She looked up at him, rising from the floor. Bare-chested, with only a pair of black sparring pants, he was attired for purely martial combat. She was fine with that; however, she knew that her mistake lied in the fact that she was _far _more used to sparring with him when he had those accursed gadgets at his disposal. The fact that he had just as many resources to exploit without the belt was one she had subconsciously failed to account for. But then, she chuckled to herself, who could predict Bruce?

_Her. _Bruce.

It still sent chills down her spine, whenever she contemplated that he was hers forever. It had been a week since the demon attack, with Kent Allard holding down Gotham. Bruce surmised that it was because the enemy had not anticipated losing Codename Beelzebub in the field so soon. She could see that restlessness was beginning to eat away at him; he was never one for inactivity. So she had proposed a sparring match between them to help cool his blood– or heat it, as the case may be. She did not blush, but a more innocent woman would have.

She was shaken, however, from her reverie by the blaring of the Watchtower's alert alarms.

_**This is J'onn to all points, all points, respond. This is not a drill. All points, respond,**_ the Martian Manhunter's voice spoke within their minds.

_**This is Batman. I'm in the training room with Wonder Woman,**_ Bruce thought back. _**We're en route, **_he said, motioning Diana. _**Standby.**_

Bruce ran as Diana flew to the onboard Armory. "Hell of a constitutional," Bruce joked sarcastically.

Diana rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it."

The Armory was upon them quickly. Punching in his access codes, Bruce donned his battle armor. Stocking his belt, donning his cloak and slipping on his cowl, Batman made ready to head out. Diana fell in beside him, fully equipped.

_**Fill us in, J'onn, **_commanded Batman tersely.

_**There is a major spike in epsilon radiation emanating from Central City. The Flash is already on the scene.**_

_Big surprise, _thought Batman ironically.

_**Flash reports it as a "giant white tentacle-y thing," **_continued J'onn._** Images are unavailable.**_

_**Copy, **_replied the Dark Knight. _**Link us up psychically. Have Red Tornado and Green Lantern on the scene by time we get there. **_

_**Acknowledged, **_replied J'onn. _**Link established.**_

_**Good, **_Batman commented. Inwardly, he was relieved that Red Tornado's psionic client worked the way it was supposed to. T.O. Morrow may have been a genius, but his wiring and programming strings were almost as complicated and jumbled as the man's mind. _**Diana, you head down there. I'll be in from above.**_

_**Yes, Batman, **_replied Diana, now fully in battle mode.

Batman peeled off, making for the hangar bay. Leaping over the guardrail, he ran for his vehicle– the Batwing.

_**This is Batman to all points: Green Lantern, Red Tornado, Flash, Diana and J'onn. I am mobile; I repeat, I am mobile. All onsite, give me status reports regularly. Do NOT engage; I repeat, do NOT engage. We do not know what we are dealing with, **_thought Batman to all of his compatriots. He heated up the engine of the Batwing and checked the weapons systems before piloting the advanced orbital jet into the atmosphere.

_**Understood, **_came the unanimous reply. Diana slipped into the back seat of the cockpit, running through the auxiliary flight checks. The Batwing slipped from the hangar of the Watchtower, and like a snake in the grass, slid in at the perfect re-entry angle–stratospheric flight _was_ faster than atmospheric, after all–and taking a shallow angle of descent as they flew towards Central.

Once the Batwing cleared the cloud cover above Central City, _it _came into view.

Looking like something out of H.P. Lovecraft's worst acid-induced hallucination, the thing was sixty-five stories tall, a gargantuan mass of tentacles and eyes, with a terrible, jaggedly toothed mouth, colored a sickly white.

_**All points check in, **_commanded Batman.

_**Green Lantern, here.**_

_**Red Tornado, present.**_

_**Flash, been here.**_

"Perfect," he muttered. _**Green Lantern, keep that thing contained. Same with you, Flash. Keep it from putting too much strain on Lantern's containment field.**_

_**Roger.**_

_**Roger,**_ came the response.

_**Diana, you need to fly in close; try to damage that thing.**_

_**On it,**_ responded Diana. She opened the cockpit and flew out, freeing her gladius from her side, taking her lasso in her other hand, flying into the bubble-shaped field of green that Hal was constructing around the creature, and into the eye of the vortex Flash was creating to halt its progress.

_And now, my turn, _Batman thought to himself. He flew the Batwing in behind Diana, letting loose dual Hellfire missiles. He didn't expect them to be effective; he just wanted to see what made the monster tick, so to speak.

It didn't mean he wasn't surprised, however, when the missiles proved to be complete duds.

_Damn, _he cursed to himself. But Diana looked to be having more luck than he was, slashing and cutting the creature with her gladius, actually doing some harm to the thing ripping up half of Central City. It didn't dare cross Flash's vortex, either, so Hal's barrier remained in place, radiating with a greenish glow.

And that's when things went south.

In less than fifteen seconds, the thing stopped Flash, destroyed Hal's containment field… and knocked Diana out of the sky. It proceeded onwards, unperturbed by Batman's continued peppering of it with Hellfires, continuing to march forth and destroy. He checked his belt, finding an access key with which he opened a secret compartment of the Batwing. It was time to finish this.

Diana came to groggily. The impact, she figured, must have inflicted injury to her head. The ground shook with the weight of the eldritch abomination walking through Central, destroying with its ghastly white tentacles everything that stood in its path. Hal was flying around it, but she could tell by the way the green glow around him flickered that he was quickly losing power. Flash was in a worse state, actually peddling and wheeling in midair, as he had failed to land.

_**DIANA! **_came Batman's thoughts into her head. _**Are you all right?**_

_**I'm fine, Batman,**_ she sent back. _**Wha…**_

_**I need you to do something,**_ he projected, cutting her off. _**The creature's going to destroy the city. We need to stop it, and right now, I'm the only one in the condition to do so.**_

_**What do you need? **_she asked.

_**Fly around the base of the thing. Wrap up its legs, **_he instructed.

_**I can't stop it, Batman, **_she objected.

_**I'm not asking you to. I just need you to slow it down,**_ he replied.

She sprung into action before thinking, flying around the abomination with her lasso, coiling its legs together and bringing the creature as close to a halt as she could imagine. Then, as the Batwing swooped down, flying much lower than before, she asked the obvious question warily.

_**What are you going to do, Batman? **_she sent.

_**Watch, **_he replied cryptically. She gasped.

Batman dropped out of the Batwing, at first jumping, then flipping and turning his fall into a dive. He brought forth, in his hands, two large objects shaped like his bat symbol. As he came close to the slowed creature, he extended his arms, the bat symbols whizzing and whirring…

…and cut into the flesh of the abomination.

And it worked.

As Batman cut through it, the abomination shuddered and roared in agony. Light poured out from crevices in its body, then exploded in a conflagration, shooting up into the sky in the shape of a cross.

Diana's heart raced in something approaching panic. She flew to the remains of the abomination, tearing furiously through the fleshy remains of the thing, searching relentlessly for Batman. Her methodology was rewarded– Batman's gloved hand burst through the membranous flesh of the beast's "stomach". He calmly climbed from the wreckage of the destructive monster, slipping something that she could not clearly see into his belt.

"Batman!" she shouted, embracing him before pulling away and slapping him. "What, do you have a death wish or something?"

He looked at her, amused, and then dead serious. "No," he said. "I just betted on you. And you didn't disappoint."

She embraced him again, tearing up. "Don't scare me like that!"

"I'm sorry. But you of all people should know that I'd never leave you of my own volition, Diana. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, I'm not an idiot," he said soothingly, stroking her hair.

She had to laugh at that. "I promise you, Batman, _no one _thinks you're an idiot."

He chuckled. "You'd be surprised." He leaned down, seeking to kiss her…

… And the moment was ruined. The Flash zipped over to them, and Diana had to stifle an animalistic growl of _extreme _displeasure.

"Batman," he began, breathless and brushing off cement dust. "What was that thing?"

His jaw set into a severe line. "That, Flash," he replied, "was an Angel."

"An Angel? I didn't think those existed!" Flash exclaimed.

"Neither did I," replied Batman enigmatically. The ground rumbled again, however, as a SECOND Angel appeared. He swore, knowing that his dual silver-edged buzz saws would do no good if he could not reach the thing's S2 engine. Just as he was beginning the process of planning out the oncoming fight, however, the Angel shrieked, and with a horrible ripping sound as its Absolute Terror Field ruptured, the Angel was literally _torn in half_ from behind. Through it flew the figure of a humanoid, doused in Angel blood, roaring in anger. It bolted through the sky, picking up speed and becoming more and more discernable as it approached the task force.

"WHERE IS KAL-EL?!" yelled General Dru-Zod, face red with fury, and tear-streaks through the covering of asteroid dust.

"WHERE IS HE?!" he shouted again. Batman's hand went to his belt, popping a cylindrical stick of lead-encased red kryptonite from its compartment and flipping open its canister, keeping it concealed. Zod bolted like a bullet straight for him, a sort of manic fury glinting in his eyes.

"ZOD! STOP!" Batman yelled. He instinctively put his arms up, the open cylinder of red kryptonite in his hand, blocking Zod's attempt to grapple just as it landed; the red kryptonite worked fast enough that the Kryptonian's strength was weakened to equal Batman. Thinking fast even as the force of Zod's grapple forced him across the ground, creating a rut in the middle of the street, he brought a knee up into the gut of the Kryptonian general, forcing him to double over as the Angel's cross backlit the act. He quickly capitalized upon his advantage, bringing both hands, with fingers interlocked, hard upon the back of the prone Kryptonian. Shaken but determined not to show it, he grabbed Zod's uniform collar with both hands and slammed him against the closest wall, mouth set into a severe line, jaw resolute.

"Why do you want Kal-El, Zod?" he asked. When Zod refused to answer, Batman shifted his grip to hold his throat in one hand, leaving his other hand free to punch through the wall right next to Zod's head. "Answer me!"

"_**I can tell you that," **_came Morpheus. _**"Remember how I said that Kal-El is lost to you? This is what I meant. His mind is not his own." **_Batman dreaded what came next._** "Kal-El, at the head of a demon army of Legion, has just destroyed the second New Krypton. Faora's dead. They all are."**_

"You are right, damn you," said Zod, fresh tears of anguish springing into his eyes. "I WILL HAVE HIS HEAD!"

"No, you won't," said Batman. "But if you help us, I promise you that you _will _get to deliver justice upon him. From this moment forth, Kal-El is no longer our friend. We have an opening in the League and an invasion from Hell on the event horizon. Hell, it's already begun."

"Why would I join _you_?" sneered Zod. "And why would you trust me?"

"The answer to the latter is because you have _nothing left_, Zod. The last remnants of Krypton have been eradicated. To the former, because doing so is the only way you'll get _close _to Kal in his current state, if your track record is any indication. You're an intelligent man, Zod. What other choice do you have?" Batman replied.

"Fine," said Zod. "I shall help you. But only to avenge my Faora!"

"Of course," he said. "I would ask no more of you." He let Zod down to the ground. _**J'onn? **_he called out telepathically. _**Are the Founding Seven in agreement?**_

_**Aye, **_came Hal's answer.

_**Aye, **_voted J'onn.

_**Aye, **_thought Diana.

_**Aye, **_projected Flash.

_**Fuck yeah! **_yelled Carter.

"Then it's decided," determined Batman.

"Zod, welcome to the League."

_**AN: So? R&R? Please? I'll try to update regularly again.**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**AN: So… how did you guys like the last one? I'm gonna be updating at least once a week, but not every day. Sorry!**_

_**Now, let's get going…**_

"Contrary to what you might think, General, you won't be taking Kal's position as One. That goes to Br… Batman now, though his quarters will remain the same," Diana said. She cursed to herself; she was unused to having to keep from using Bruce's name around new Justice League members, but it _was_ a necessity. General Zod, while an honorable commander, had still been an infrequent opponent of the League in the past. His motives, as Bruce would say, were indiscernible at this time.

Currently, she was taking the newest League member down to his new quarters aboard the Watchtower, combining the escort section with an unofficial tour of the facility, though doubtlessly he already knew the layout of the station– from Luthor if from no one else. Zod was still stewing, though his blood was obviously beginning to cool; he looked more withdrawn, more sullen than he did just moments before. Despite his past as a villain, Diana felt for the man. It was as if she could see in him a different form of what happened to her Bruce– his entire world–quite literally, in fact–destroyed in the blink of an eye.

"So this is where you will be staying for the time being," she said, opening the door with a scan of her palm. As it whooshed open, Zod nodded in approval; the room was clean, simple, bare and Spartan. Perfect for a military man like him– she knew from experience that many of the more hardened and jaded commanders became either uncomfortable or derisive when surrounded by ornamentation. "I hope it is to your liking, General. At 1600 hours, you are to report to the Sanctum to be sworn in. You will receive an identification code and have your handprint entered into the system accordingly. The training facilities will then be open for your use. Just crank up the level to 8,999. It's the maximum level Clark is– was– able to use. And once again General Zod, welcome to the League." Her spiel finished, she turned to leave.

"Princess Diana," said Zod quietly. She stopped in the doorframe, turning her head to the side in order to regard the professional Kryptonian soldier.

"Thank you," he said.

A small smile quirked upon her lips, there and gone so fast that Zod wondered if it was ever really there. "You're welcome," she replied simply. "But don't thank me yet. If what Batman tells me is true, we're all in for a fight to rival the Titan Wars." And with that, she left, the door sliding shut behind her.

Once she was gone, Zod's knees buckled, plopping him down onto the simple white bed that was tucked into the corner of the room. He stared at his hands. These were the hands he despised, hands which proved themselves incapable of protecting his new homeworld… or Faora. He did not cry; he had no tears left to shed. He simply sat there, capitulating into oblivion, upon that bed, regarding his hands.

In the Monitor Womb of the Watchtower, Bruce sat in a black leather chair, editing duty rosters to a more vigilant regimen. Since Clark was out of the League– Morpheus, after all, had told him that his friend's mind was irreparable– it fell to him to take the position of One, the unofficial (or de facto, depending upon whether or not you were a member of the Founding Seven or a similarly senior member, like Doctor Fate) leader of the League. His mask was off as he typed furiously into the holopad keyboard for the Watchtower supercomputer, changing rotations around so that the times of day better suited the individual abilities of each League member. He finished the third day of the schedule for rotation; so much the better, he thought as he rubbed his eyes, strained by the bright light. A pair of nubile, muscular arms adorned with silver bracers upon the wrists encircled his suited chest, accompanied by a lock of raven hair over his shoulder. Almost against his will, he smiled.

"Hello to you, too, Diana," he said, an edge of mirth in his voice that was imperceptible to those who did not know him as… intimately… as she did. She loved it when he was in a sufficiently good mood to introduce levity into the situation, dry though it was; Tartarus, she loved _him. _

"Anything in particular that you want?" he asked her, bringing her out of her reverie. Her eyes flicked down to his lower body.

"To talk about," he clarified firmly. "The other things are for later," he said matter-of-factly in an aside. She blushed at being caught; in reality, however, she did have something that was bugging her.

"If Clark's mind is no longer his own, then why expel him from the Justice League? It's not like he's in control of his actions," she asked him. Bruce had a reason for doing everything he did; she was curious to see what his rationale was.

Bruce took a deep breath. He'd been expecting her to ask this. "Deduction," he responded. When she gazed at him, a quizzical look in her blue eyes, he elaborated. "Clark's been trained in psionic defense. I taught him myself," he began. "Therefore, any mind-enslavement effect would have been ineffective against him, magically-based or not. But by the same token, Clark would not go out of his way to destroy _any_ planet, let alone one populated entirely by the last Kryptonians. So it stands to reason that the psionic attack he was placed under did not attempt to dominate his _conscious _mind, but his subconscious–which, incidentally, is the only area where one may prepare himself to receive attempts at telepathic warfare, and consequently the only venue from where he may combat and liberate his conscious mind–and, using his subconscious, manipulated his psychologically-governed interpersonal associations by changing how his subconscious fed into the anterior insula, putamen and supramarginal gyrus regions of his brain. In essence, they changed the entirety of his personality such that, if I am right–and I probably am, because this is the only explanation of which I could logically conceive–not only is he unable to resist, but he does not _wish _to. Ergo, his mind is not his own in the sense that the Clark we knew is well and truly gone, and the Clark that now inhabits his body obeys Legion of his own volition. Clark… Kal-El is lost to us now, and no amount of screwing with his head short of killing or lobotomizing him will change that he is an entirely different entity now."

Diana sat in silence for a while, trying to process this. It did not take nearly as long as she thought it would; she had long since accepted that Clark was lost to them–Lucifer had nothing to gain from lying to her–though deciphering the psychobabble was a task in and of itself. Her reverie was broken, however, when out of the corner of her eye she spotted a diagram–a very _familiar _diagram–displayed upon the monitor of the supercomputer.

"What's that?" Diana asked. Bruce was surprised at how quickly she changed the subject, and without incident, no less. But if there was something he'd always prided himself on, it was his poker face. With this on, he responded to his lover's query.

"This," he said, indicating the diagram, "is an Angel. More precisely, the Third Angel, Sachiel. And these," he continued, indicating a pair of diagrams on the other end of the screen that he observed Diana had to strain to see, "are the Angels we encountered today. My problem, however, is how I knew they were Angels." Seeing her confused look that seemed to shout 'what in particular's so strange about you knowing it's an Angel', he clarified. "Angels–or at least, Angels of _this _particular variety–are native to _Neon Genesis Evangelion_–an anime that was aired on Japanese television by the studio GAINAX in 1995 for a six-month run that ended in late March, 1996. They were–much like the things we fought today in Central–sixty-story tall, ostensibly 'alien', war machines against which conventional weapons consistently proved ineffective, due to the fact that they possessed a nearly impenetrable force shield called an Absolute Terror Field (or A-T Field for short). I took down the one by rupturing its core, destroying its S2 engine. I'm working on how we'll be able fight them when, as was the case today, there's more than one to deal with at any given time. But what really irks me is the obvious question: how the _fuck _are they here?"

"_An excellent question, my friend,_" came Lucifer's voice. In a flash of light that left the metal floor behind Bruce's chair stained with a radial arrangement of soot, he appeared. "_And one for which the answer may be even more disturbing than the necessity of asking the question. Which is to say that the thief–who, I have found, calls himself 'Mephistopheles' (can you believe the _gall _of some people nowadays?)–has discovered how to traverse sixth-dimensional space at will._"

Bruce groaned in dismay, cradling his face in between his gloved hands.

"What do you mean?" asked Diana; really, the concept, while vaguely familiar, was alien to her as one who did not have a background in quantum physics.

"Sixth-dimensional space," began Bruce, "is a fundamental principle of the mathematical and theoretically physical–that being an adjective for the study of theoretical physics–concept of _n_-dimensional space; specifically, a domain of that space in which _n_=6. In layman's terms, the sixth dimension not only comprises the entirety of fifth-dimensional space–that being the chronological sequence of the fourth-dimensional existence of all events in time oriented simultaneously–but _all possible variations thereupon._ Like those times we ran into our alternate universe counterparts," he explained. "Each of those timelines in which they existed in their particular states existed in sixth-dimensional space (which, you must understand, is not a variation on the fifth-dimensional sequence, but within the fourth-dimensional, simultaneously occurring events, as all of the alternate timelines run parallel to ours–or vice versa, depending on your perspective)."

"_You are correct,_" agreed Lucifer, "_though had Morpheus not previously explained to me the concept of seventh-dimensional space–upon which _all _of the Endless had to operate in order to destroy their predecessors–my head would hurt so much from how you explained it that I might have accidentally caused your sun to go nova. But back to the point, if I may be so bold,_" he said, regretting already the necessary digression. "_This is an issue, and I do not believe I must explain why, least of all to you, Bruce._"

"No, you don't," he concurred. "If he's got the power to have Angels coming here already, then he needs to be stopped before he brings over Cthulu, or something like that. Although," he commented ironically, "if he's got the Angels here, Cthulu couldn't be much worse."

"_I shudder to think of it,_" Lucifer said quite seriously, though his languid stance, to the casual observer, might suggest otherwise. "_Morpheus once showed me H.P. Lovecraft's dreams, and they were enough to cause ME nightmares._"

"Though this introduces a tactical quandary," observed Bruce, slipping into his 'Master Strategist' mode. "If this Mephistopheles character may traverse the Multiverse–and I mean that literally–and bring back with him anything he chooses, then we have a _very _large problem. Even I cannot possibly account for, much less predict, an enemy who has literally _every _option, possible and impossible–with the _hopeful_ exception of time travel–complemented by a menagerie of various deadly and sanity-endangering creatures at his disposal at any given time." He turned to the computer and began typing furiously. "We have one possible solution–improbable, but our best bet," he said as he ran through every possible option. "It is twofold. We must first see what he has pulled through already, and then destroy whatever he's using to jump around the Multiverse–which requires a short trip to Hell–and make sure he can't make another one. Lucifer," he asked. "The Dreaming is the purveyance of all thought, correct?"

"_Eminently,_" he replied.

"Is it a stretch, then, to hypothesize that Morpheus, as the ruler and embodiment of the Dreaming, would have the unique ability to travel–and consequently, transport us–across the thoughts of beings?"

"**It is not,**" said Morpheus, appearing besides Lucifer. "**Such a thing is certainly within my ability to accomplish, and within my prerogative to execute, should I see fit.**"

"Perfect," said Bruce. _More than perfect_, he thought. He furiously planned–four, five, six, fuck it, _eighteen_ steps ahead, making contingencies, fallbacks… _it's all coming together_, he thought.

"You mean you have a plan already?" asked Diana.

"Several," he replied without missing a beat. Unperturbed that he let the last bit slip through his lips, he began recording his thought processes. "A plan, fourteen contingencies, two dozen fallbacks, forty-three alternatives… what I proposed is more than possible, even lacking Morpheus's ability to transport us through thought. We'll need to secure the willing help of Etrigan, Fate, Zod, Arrow, Canary and several others, but they'll do it." He let a small smirk slide its way onto his face–in a relatively public place, no less, which was an occasion worthy of note for posterity's sake in and of itself–but he would allow it. This was his most daring plan to date. "_We're _going to do it."

"_This may be a stupid question–oh, fuck, it almost _definitely _is–but we're going to be doing… what, exactly?_" Lucifer asked, leaning over Bruce's shoulder.

"My dear Lord of the Morning, isn't it obvious?" asked Bruce rhetorically in response. "We're going to break into Hell."

_**AN: As promised! To be honest, I wasn't really planning this from the get-go, but it just seemed like a good idea. Call me crazy. Anyways, I hope you, the public of , enjoyed this chapter. Auf Wiedersehen!**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**AN: Glad to see all the positive feedback! Keep 'em coming! It's gonna get a helluva lot more intense/freaky in the near-future, so brace yourselves! And now on to the story already in progress…**_

"**Are you all sure you wish to go through with this?**" asked Morpheus, his expression nearly unreadable.

"_Come now, Morpheus, you should know better,_" chided Lucifer wryly. "_Though this _does _give new meaning to the oath 'I'd follow you into Hell itself.'_" He chuckled, shaking his head gently.

"Etrigan is anxious to be there already; his domain is his foremost concern here. I am sure that once we're there, he'll be the most willing of us to contend with the dark powers which have overtaken the dominion of the Abyss," replied Jason Blood.

"_HELL HAS BECOME THE DOMAIN AND ABODE OF CHAOS,_" said Doctor Fate. "_IT IS MY DUTY AS A LORD OF ORDER TO ERADICATE SUCH AN ABOMINATION AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY. I STAND RESOLUTE._"

"Where he goes, I go," stated Zatanna, inching almost imperceptibly towards the man who once was her father, John Zatara, and within whom his spirit still dwelled.

"**I suppose I **_**should **_**know better than to attempt to contend with the Elektra Complex,**" sighed Morpheus ruefully.

"I believe you all know why I am coming; thus, I shall not articulate my reasons," said Zod, standing at attention and geared up in a nanomail variation upon his Kryptonian battle uniform–courtesy of Batman.

"Yeah, the Bat pretty much gets what he wants anyways, so we decided to spare ourselves the grief of saying 'no'," stated Green Arrow, twirling one of his silver-derivative (thermite, net, mercury-explosive, _et cetera_) arrows in one hand, Black Canary hanging off his other arm.

"Good," stated Batman, walking in at last, replete in a new batsuit. He moved his hands over his belt reflexively, flicking out one of his new silver batarangs. The gun was an unfortunate necessity the last time he'd used it, as it was when he was fighting the Monk. He was prepared for anything they might encounter within the Inferno, this time. "Almost all of us are here."

"Almost?" asked Zatanna.

A wry smirk fought its way to the surface; Batman suppressed it decisively. "Yes, _almost_, Zatanna. The last ones we're waiting on should be arriving shortly. They should get my summons at any second now…"

_Dateline: 19.00 hours, West End, London, England_

"Hey, John! Please stop filling the bathroom wastebasket with cigarette ashes!" called out Stephanie Brown as she stepped out of the shower.

"Yeah, sure Steph!" John Constantine yelled back. He sat at the kitchen table, studying his shot-glass of firewater intensely. The immortal occultist-sorcerer clasped his hands beneath his nose, then framing his face with them, simply reflecting on the past few months, eyes looking at but not seeing the furnishings of the simple two-bedroom London apartment, nor the walls covered with diagrams that would enflame most peoples' religious sensibilities–not that he cared.

Down the hall, Stephanie walked into her room–though such was not always the case, she thought to herself wryly. She toweled her dirty-blond hair dry, repeating the process on the rest of her lithe form. Training with John, while it wasn't up to Batman standards of stringency, was still not a proverbial walk in the park. As the Necronomicon so accurately phrased it, "Mistakes may be costly." No more was that more true than in actual magic, so she had to ensure that she didn't fudge even a _syllable_–on that point, the sorcerer had been crystal-clear from the get-go. She dressed simply: a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt–a souvenir from one of the infrequent time-travel trips John had taken her on; that time to the original London performance of "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway." She checked around for her phone, before remembering one of John's rules– 'whenever possible, practice.' Stephanie snapped her fingers, her cell phone appearing and hovering above her outstretched hand. It was at that moment that the thing began to vibrate furiously. Flipping it open, she nearly fell backwards in surprise. The text she had just received read thusly:

Watchtower. Now. Bring Constantine.

-B

"JOHN!" she shouted.

Constantine jumped at the sudden volume with which his pupil/lover had called his name. He cursed, standing up and preparing for a fight. Whatever words of censure he had prepared, however, died upon his lips as he regarded the text message, color draining from his face. _Oh, shit,_ he thought. _Either they think I'M the bloke who went and stole the keys to Hell, or Batman just wants to see me. I'm not sure which is worse._ If there was one person who still intimidated him–though he'd never allot to him the satisfaction of seeing it–after all his years of life, it was Batman.

"We've got to go," he said dumbly, licking his lips. Zatanna would have looked at him as if he were an idiot, but Stephanie didn't, thankfully. She was one of the few who understood what it was to be on the receiving end of Batman's ire, which imparted her with some degree of sympathy for John's fear of the black-clad member of the Founding Seven.

"Indeed," she replied simply. She tossed him his coat–for which he was immeasurably grateful–and, having dressed herself more formally in the interim, walked into the parlor. After checking to see that his fags were where they should be within the extradimensional pockets of his duster, he followed her to where they practiced. Once there, with a muttered few words and a snap of his fingers, the pair winked out of existence.

_Aboard the Watchtower_

"Three… two… one…" Batman counted down, glaring at his palmtop's digitally rendered analog clock as its second hand clicked down to zero. As he finished, a large pop broke the relative quiet within the War Room of the Watchtower. "Stephanie, you were very nearly late," he scolded in his deceptive monotone, not even looking up as the blonde former-Robin teleported in. "Simply because you work with Codename: Hellblazer now does not mean that you can disregard what I taught you about being punctual."

"Sorry," Stephanie mumbled, humiliated by how easily she fell back into her own rhythms around him. Seeing him always reminded her that she was the one weapon that he had tried to forge that couldn't withstand the heat of the furnace; of course, that sentiment had committed her all the more to the study of magic once she'd discovered her affinity to the Mystic Arts–or rather, once _John _had discovered her affinity–but the sentiment remained. Bad blood was never so thick or so awkward; at least Jason had been bat-shit and berserk off the bat.

"And you, Constantine. Good. Now we can begin," stated Batman. He motioned for the assembled group to gather around the conference table. "We will work in two teams here at first. Team Alpha is comprised of Morpheus, Etrigan, Lucifer, Stephanie, Diana and myself; Team Beta is similarly composed of Codename: Hellblazer, Zatanna, Fate, Zod, Arrow and Canary. The plan is as follows: Team Beta will teleport past the Gates–you are the only one who knows how this is accomplished through occult means–and into the upper level. Next, it is your job to bring down the proverbial hammer. Draw the majority of Legion's forces to the forefront, drawing their demon armies out of the seventh, eighth and ninth levels _at least_. Then Team Alpha will slip in through the Dreaming and into the vestibule; for it is only here wherein the rift that grants the ability of sixth-dimensional travel may reside. Dru-Zod," he said, addressing the Kryptonian directly. "Should you come across Kal-El, you are clear to engage at your discretion, but do so _cautiously_. Do not overly endanger yourself; this is hardly the decisive battle. You cannot beat Kal in a domain where Legion's influence is so prominent; this is not the engagement in which you will avenge the deaths of your planet and Faora. Need you a motivation, then, let it be this: show him–show them–that you survive, that you're not done fighting yet, and that you're going to be coming for them."

He looked around the table to ensure he had everyone's attention. "J'onn will keep us linked, but should his powers prove insufficient in accomplishing that, Morpheus will also keep a psychic 'safety net' in place, and, if necessary, overtake J'onn's link. I want a status report every execution, every event, every change in the enemy's tactics; failing that, I want an update every five minutes." Batman took a hard look around the table. "I don't want to lose anyone on this op, so stick together, watch each other's backs, stay sharp and above all else, try not to die. Execute."

The table exploded into motion, organizing themselves into the planned teams, barely noticing as J'onn initiated the psychic linkup at Batman's signal.

_**Good luck, **_sent Batman. _**And good hunting, all of you. **_

With a guttural incantation spoken with a dual-vocalization, Constantine teleported Team Beta out. The Dark Knight sighed inwardly, signaling Morpheus to initiate the transfer.

"**Hold on,**" warned Morpheus. After he said that, the War Room's titanium-alloy plating and reinforced transparent aluminum viewports were replaced by a vortex of colors and patterns, twisting and turning in their infinite intricacies, in their unimaginable complexity. Batman closed his eyes, drawing a breath to still his body and _focus_. When he opened his eyes, the team was standing in a vast expanse of desert, sands shifting and flowing through the air without wind that would compel them to do so.

"**This…**" stated Morpheus, "**…is the Dreaming.**"

_The First Level of Hell_

"'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,'" intoned Constantine. "An original welcome mat if I've ever seen one."

"I'll say," agreed Zatanna. "Not much of a welcome, but nonetheless appropriate, wouldn't you say, Nabu?"

"_NO MATTER WHAT THE GATE SAYS,_" uttered Fate in his echoing voice. "_THE FORCES OF CHAOS DARE NOT DENY US ENTRY. WE SHALL COMPLETE THE TASK AT HAND._" With that, the sorcerer outstretched his right hand, his middle and ring fingers held down independent of the others, and from the two digits on either edge of the hand proper formed a large golden _ankh. _The _ankh_'s end extended telescopically, slicing through the Gate's message; such was the power he wielded.

"Right, stay on task," Zatanna chastised herself. "Elbisivni em nurt!" she casted, rendering herself unable to be seen. That done, she sneaked through the blasted gate, hiding behind smashed Ionic columns. Constantine muttered his own spell, hiding his own form, but further making himself mostly incorporeal, such that he could stand but not be heard (unless he spoke), felt or seen. Seeing his sorcerous compatriots sneaking in such a way, he cast a large _ankh_, which appeared directly before him, before walking through it. He followed Constantine and his host's daughter, travelling through a pocket timeline out of sync with the prime timeline from whence he came, able to track their progress without his in turn being tracked.

Zatanna advanced quickly up to an overturned Doric column, peering over it and down into the Abyss. She peered down to the Crucible, which was so shrouded in shadow that she could not see it properly. Turning her gaze back to the first level, however, she spotted a squadron of minor demons making camp on the edge. She waved Constantine's attention over to the phenomenon magically; upon seeing it, he cursed.

"Fuck, lass," he swore. "They're flying the banner of the XII Legion, shock troops in Hell's army." He paused. "We're really gonna go through with this, aren't we? Fucking suicide mission."

"It won't be," said Zod. Constantine's head jerked up in surprise, regarding the steely-eyed Kryptonian whose attention was fixated upon the demons in question. "None of us will die before I get to Kal-El. This I swear." With that, Zod let out a battle cry and charged, flying, directly into the shocked mass of encamped demons.

"Well, at least the bloke doesn't lack for subtlety," commented John drily. He leaped over the column, making himself visible now, joined by Doctor Fate as they began blasting apart the demons and causing a distraction. Zatanna sighed, leaping over the column herself and beginning to shout out combat spells

_Damn you, Bruce, _thought the magician. _This'd better work!_

"Is this it?" Diana asked Lucifer. The former archangel's head turned, peering at the spherical dreamscape the Dark Knight's paramour was indicating. It was a red-backed, fiery place, with molten rock being spat high into the air, around a gigantic throne that looked like the Skinheads threw up on it.

"No," he replied. "That's not the Crucible at all."

"This is it," asserted the Batman himself, indicating a black dais surrounded by somber grey stone streaked with soot, but covered with frost and ice; and in the center of it was a large throne, elegant and Rococo in its style, carved from a large glacier. Lucifer smiled in spite of himself.

"You are correct, my dear Dark Knight," the Devil replied.

"We can't go in yet, though," pointed out Stephanie. "I feel a very evil presence there; I honestly think that it's Mephistopheles sitting in that throne right now."

"Then we'll be stealthy," replied Batman simply, as if the solution was the most obvious thing in the universe. Palming a half-dozen silver-edged batarangs from his utility belt, he inched through the sphere that represented someone's dream of Hell, entering into the subject proper of the nightmare. Stephanie sighed, once again outdone by her former mentor and, together with Diana, going through after him. Following them came Etrigan and Lucifer, Morpheus staying in the Dreaming to better coordinate and to provide Team Alpha with an easy escape route should things go to shit.

Batman slipped through and into the vestibule, keeping to the shadows and sneaking behind cover. As he hoped, the others followed his lead, either finding cover or, in Stephanie's case, creating it. He felt Morpheus's influence steal throughout his limbs; it was the Immortal's task to keep them from being detected magically by the members of Legion present in Hell. Satisfied that he was adequately concealed from enemy telepathy, he inched to the edge of his cover, peering out at Mephistopheles sitting languidly upon the throne of Hell.

Mephistopheles was not what he had expected; he had imagined a Lovecraftian, sanity-shattering monster to have taken over Lucifer's domain. Instead, the Trickster was no larger than a man, covered from head to toe in black–tall leather S.S. boots, velvet breeches and cavalry coat, a long cloak and a wide-brimmed felt fedora with a single, flamboyant scarlet feather tucked into the crown over a head of long black hair tied back with what looked to be a steel clip. The one thing that _was _on par with Batman's expectations, however, was the white, expressionless mask he wore, with eyeholes so deep that their shadow made the eyes themselves indiscernible.

"My lord! My lord Mephistopheles!" called out a slimy, sycophantic voice. Batman heard Lucifer swear the name _Belial_. "We are being attacked!"

Mephistopheles did not appear to move a muscle; nevertheless, from all around the chamber came the simple question, "What?"

"They're attacking the First Level and moving down!"

"Belial," Mephistopheles sighed. "There is only one entrance into Hell. These people, no matter how powerful, are fools all; there are none now who may stand against the might of Legion, especially not here, in _our_ home. Call out every one of my vassals and have them bring their levies, including our newest addition–the Kryptonian; I shall deal with the situation _personally._" With that, the black-cloaked charlatan rose into the air, righting himself into a standing position and, with his arms outstretched, began to fly up out of the vestibule and out of the Abyss.

Waiting for the Trickster to be out of earshot, Batman pressed his back against the upright column he used as cover, counting to himself. _One, two, THREE! _On 'three,' he popped out from behind his cover and threw all six of the silver batarangs at different spots on Belial's body, severing the white, emotive mask he wore from his face in less than a second. Motioning to Stephanie, he watched as she covered the demon's detonation in an orb of darkness, so as not to attract the attention of Mephistopheles. Nodding sharply in satisfaction–something he was all too aware that he had only rarely done to Stephanie–he waved Team Alpha forth.

They split up, each searching the vestibule thoroughly before coming finally to the throne, all of them gathering around the artifact in question. "Well," stated Batman. "This is the only place we have yet to look." Kneeling down, he began to examine the chair. After about four minutes of acute searching, he was about to say that he could find nothing; but something–a flash of silver, a distended knob, something _off_–caught his notice. Looking over it with new awareness, he checked over the entire chair again, following the string of complex mechanisms that he had noticed ran throughout the entirety of the icy throne. Realizing at last, with a growing sense of foreboding, what it was that was so different about the chair, he stepped back. "Lucifer, did you ever install an elevator function onto this unit?" Batman asked.

"No, never," replied the Devil, incredulous that the Dark Knight even asked. "This is as low as Hell goes. This is the bottom."

"Not anymore," corrected Batman. With that, he flipped a switch on the arm of the throne, causing the dais immediately surrounding it to descend. The rest of the team barely had time to wonder as to why this function was installed before a new sight caused them to gasp in surprise and horror.

Below the vestibule was a factory. A factory of Angels.


End file.
